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Table 2 Prevalence estimates with 95% confidence intervals of any potential pitfalls in meta-regression-analyses

From: Most published meta-regression analyses based on aggregate data suffer from methodological pitfalls: a meta-epidemiological study

Pitfall

Total (N = 81)

Year 2002 (N = 29)

Year 2012 (N = 52)

Ecological fallacy

53 (65%, 55 to 75%)

20 (69%, 51 to 83%)

33 (63%, 50 to 75%)

Overfitting

14 (17%, 11 to 27%)

6 (21%, 10 to 38%)

8 (15%, 8 to 28%)

Meta-regression on risk of the analysed outcome

5 (6%, 3 to 14%)

2 (7%, 2 to 22%)

3 (6%, 2 to 16%)

Any potential meta-regression pitfall

57 (70%, 60 to 79%)

21 (72%, 54 to 85%)

36 (69%, 56 to 80%)