کد مقاله کد نشریه سال انتشار مقاله انگلیسی نسخه تمام متن
1083271 950992 2008 8 صفحه PDF دانلود رایگان
عنوان انگلیسی مقاله ISI
The conclusions on the effectiveness of homeopathy highly depend on the set of analyzed trials
موضوعات مرتبط
علوم پزشکی و سلامت پزشکی و دندانپزشکی سیاست های بهداشت و سلامت عمومی
پیش نمایش صفحه اول مقاله
The conclusions on the effectiveness of homeopathy highly depend on the set of analyzed trials
چکیده انگلیسی

ObjectiveShang's recently published meta-analysis on homeopathic remedies (Lancet) based its main conclusion on a subset of eight larger trials out of 21 high quality trials (out of 110 included trials). We performed a sensitivity analysis on various other meaningful trial subsets of all high quality trials.Study DesignSubsets were defined according to sample size, type of homeopathy, type of publication, and treated disease/condition. For each subset, we estimated the overall odds ratios (ORs) from random effect meta-analyses.ResultsAll trials were highly heterogeneous (I2 = 62.2%). Homeopathy had a significant effect beyond placebo (OR = 0.76; 95% CI: 0.59–0.99; p = 0.039). When the set of analyzed trials was successively restricted to larger patient numbers, the ORs varied moderately (median: 0.82, range: 0.71–1.02) and the P-values increased steadily (median: 0.16, range: 0.03–0.93), including Shang's results for the eight largest trials (OR = 0.88, CI: 0.66–1.18; P = 0.41).Shang's negative results were mainly influenced by one single trial on preventing muscle soreness in 400 long-distance runners.ConclusionsThe meta-analysis results change sensitively to the chosen threshold defining large sample sizes. Because of the high heterogeneity between the trials, Shang's results and conclusions are less definite than had been presented.

ناشر
Database: Elsevier - ScienceDirect (ساینس دایرکت)
Journal: Journal of Clinical Epidemiology - Volume 61, Issue 12, December 2008, Pages 1197–1204
نویسندگان
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