I’m preparing a meta analysis and I was wondering about the software to use
If you have some basic knowledge of coding in R, then metafor is an excellent, free, and versatile package for meta-analyses. The R framework also allows you do a lot of recoding and data structuring from a basic data sheet.
It really depends on what you are using it for and your data structure. The suggestions provided are excellent. Metafor is the most all-around suitable application if you know R. RevMan is really only used in the medical literature and 'forces' you to conduct the whole synthesis in the tool.
Alternatively, have a look at Meta-Essentials (which i co-developed): its a set of free workbooks for Microsoft Excel, hence very easy to use with excellent graphics. www.meta-essentials.com or http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jrsm.1260/full
Hi Mouna,
I've written a couple programs that help people run a meta-analysis and are both based on metafor and R. MAVIS is a Shiny app and R package for running a meta-analysis in a web browser kylehamilton.net/shiny/MAVIS/ also MAJOR is a module for an SPSS replacement program called Jamovi https://www.jamovi.org/news/2017/11/23/new-modules.html
Feel free to try them out and let me know what you think I'm always looking for new features to add to my software.
Also here's a video of MAJOR being used https://youtu.be/7Wj9R_Qd4gs
Kyle
RevMan software is easier to handle. It can generate forest plot and basic funnel plot. You can measure the quality of studies using the RevMan following the Cochrane risk of bias tool (If you want to analyze pre and post treatment effect). But if you want to do go deeper analysis for checking publication bias with Trim and fill or Contour-enhanced funnel plots or Begg's and Egger's tests, then metafor package of R software is preferable. You can generate L'Abbé plots for checking the heterogeneity using this package. But you need to learn the codes to generate all these using R.
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