Table 3 Comparison between estimates of σ_sjt (p_sjt for binary outcomes) obtained with the B-spline, P-spline and Fractional Polynomial (FP) network meta-analysis models. We report median, minimum and maximum evaluated over the 50 replicates of the average σ_sjt (respectively p_sjt) for each scenario

Linear

0.1007

0.1003

0.1010

0.1423

0.1172

0.1867

Logarithmic

0.1016

0.1014

0.1018

0.1439

0.1258

0.1761

Piecewise linear monotonic

0.1300

0.1190

0.1468

0.5701

0.5552

0.5875

Mixed

0.1321

0.1200

0.1497

0.6794

0.6666

0.6850

Non-monotonic

0.1399

0.1240

0.1760

0.9321

0.9321

0.9322

MTC

0.0829

0.0746

0.0939

0.1831

0.1236

0.3685

BEST-ITP

0.1352

0.1262

0.1426

0.2507

0.1712

0.4110

Piecewise linear monotonic (binary)

0.6128

0.5923

0.6246

0.6989

0.6830

0.7037

Non-monotonic (binary)

0.5940

0.5763

0.6011

0.7732

0.7372

0.8189

Piecewise linear (non-closed network)

0.1483

0.1203

0.1749

1.0382

1.0365

1.0408