Table 3.
Investigations of heterogeneity in comparative and multiple test reviews
| Characteristic | Comparative reviews |
Multiple test reviews | Total | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Statistical analyses to compare test accuracy | ||||
| Yes | No or unclear | |||
| Number of reviewsa | 53 (42) | 29 (23) | 45 (35) | 127 (100) |
| Formal investigation performed | ||||
| Yes—meta-regression and subgroup analyses | 5 (9) | 1 (3) | 2 (4) | 8 (6) |
| Yes—meta-regression | 15 (28) | 5 (17) | 4 (9) | 24 (19) |
| Yes—subgroup analyses | 13 (25) | 8 (28) | 14 (31) | 35 (28) |
| No—limited data | 8 (15) | 2 (7) | 1 (2) | 11 (9) |
| No—only tested for heterogeneity | 3 (6) | 8 (28) | 16 (36) | 27 (21) |
| No—nothing reported | 7 (13) | 5 (17) | 8 (18) | 20 (16) |
| Unclear | 2 (4) | 0 | 0 | 2 (2) |
| If yes above, was effect on relative accuracy also investigated? | ||||
| Yes | 5 (15) | 0 | 0 | 5 (15) |
| No | 21 (64) | 0 | 0 | 21 (64) |
| Planned but no data | 1 (3) | 0 | 0 | 1 (3) |
| Unclear | 6 (18) | 0 | 0 | 6 (18) |
Numbers in parentheses are column percentages unless otherwise stated. Percentages may not add up to 100% because of rounding.
a
Numbers in parentheses are row percentages.