Table 3.
Potential predictors of the specific and overall treatment effect in one-stage IPD-MA
| Predictor | N | Specific effect |
N | Overall effect |
||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| n | β (95% CI) | n | β (95% CI) | |||
| Sex (female = 1, male =0) | 11 | 2939 | −4.28 (−7.98, −0.58) | 15 | 1857 | −3.17 (−5.53, −0.81) |
| Age, years | 11 | 2938 | 0.06 (−0.11, 0.22) | 15 | 1857 | −0.02 (−0.13, 0.09) |
| Baseline pain (0 − 100) | 11 | 2939 | 0.05 (−0.06, 0.16) | 15 | 1857 | −0.53 (−0.59, −0.47) |
| BMI, kg/m2 | 10 | 2863 | 0.03 (−0.27, 0.32) | 12 | 1633 | 0.09 (−0.12, 0.29) |
| Inflammation (yes = 1, no = 0) | 7 | 2339 | −0.31 (−4.98, 4.36) | 8 | 1329 | −2.16 (−5.42, 1.09) |
| Clinical | 4 | 1550 | −1.84 (−8.24, 4.55) | 5 | 924 | −3.03 (−7.40, 1.34) |
| Biochemical | 6 | 2116 | 0.90 (−1.53, 3.33) | 6 | 1088 | 1.18 (−0.55, 2.90) |
| Duration, months | 3 | 280 | −0.04 (−0.15, 0.07) | 4 | 181 | −0.03 (−0.09, 0.03) |
| XR severity (0–100) | 7 | 2576 | −0.01 (−0.12, 0.14) | 9 | 1412 | 0.08 (−0.00, 0.17) |
β presented on a 0–100 scale. Significant interactions (specific effect) or associations (overall effect, unadjusted model) are shown in bold. A negative interaction effect for sex (specific effect) indicates a greater specific effect for topical NSAIDs in women relative to men. A negative association between sex and overall treatment effect indicates more pain reduction in women relative to men. A negative association between baseline pain and overall treatment effect indicates that the higher the baseline pain score, the more reduction in pain.
β: beta-coefficient for interaction effect (specific effect) or covariate (overall effect); n: number of participants; N: number of trials; XR: radiographic severity.