The Standard Error/Standard Deviation Mix-Up: Potential Impacts on Meta-Analyses in Sports Medicine.
Background: A recent review found that 45% of meta-analyses included statistical errors, of which, the most common was the calculation of effect sizes based on standard error (SE) rather than standard deviation (SD) [the SE/SD mix-up]. Objectives: The first aim of this study was to assess the impact...
| Publicado en: | Sports Medicine Vol. 54; no. 6; pp. 1723 - 1733 |
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| Autor principal: | |
| Formato: | equations & formulas research tables/charts Journal Article |
| Publicado: |
Springer Nature
Jun2024
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| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ccm&AN=178678366&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: ccm uiTerm: 178678366 longDbName: CINAHL Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: dissinfo: jinfo: jid: 01121642 C5H jtl: Sports Medicine issn: 01121642 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Jun2024 vid: 54 iid: 6 pid: 237 pub: Springer Nature place: New York, New York artinfo: ui: 178678366 174999980 178678366 178678366 10.1007/s40279-023-01989-9 178678366 ppf: 1723 ppct: 10 formats: tig: atl: The Standard Error/Standard Deviation Mix-Up: Potential Impacts on Meta-Analyses in Sports Medicine. aug: au: Sandercock, Gavin affil: https://ror.org/02nkf1q06 University of Essex, Wivenhoe Park, CO43SQ, Colchester, UK sug: subj: Sports Medicine Measurement Error Standards Statistics, Types Human Male Female Adult Descriptive Statistics Soccer Running Confidence Intervals Analysis of Variance Inferential Statistics Regression Adult: 19-44 years Male Female ab: Background: A recent review found that 45% of meta-analyses included statistical errors, of which, the most common was the calculation of effect sizes based on standard error (SE) rather than standard deviation (SD) [the SE/SD mix-up]. Objectives: The first aim of this study was to assess the impact of the SE/SD mix-up on the results of one highly cited meta-analysis. Our second aim was to identify one potential source of the SE/SD mix-up, by assessing how often SE is reported as a measure of sample variability in randomised controlled trials in sports medicine. Methods: We checked for potential SE/SD mix-ups in a 2015 meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials reporting the effects of recreational football interventions on aerobic fitness in adults. We corrected effect sizes affected by SE/SD mix-ups and re-analysed the data according to the original methodology. We compared pooled estimates of effect sizes from our re-analysis of corrected values with those of the original study. To assess how often SE was reported instead of SD as a measure of sample variance, we text mined results of randomised controlled trials from seven sports medicine journals and reported the proportion reporting of SE versus SD. Results: We identified potential SE/SD mix-ups in 9/16 effect sizes included in the meta-analysis describing the effects of football-based interventions versus non-exercise control. The published effect size was standardised mean difference (SMD) = 1.46 (95% confidence interval [CI] 0.91, 2.01). After correcting for SE/SD mix-ups, our re-analysis produced a smaller pooled estimate (SMD = 0.54 [95% CI 0.37, 0.71]). The original pooled estimate for trials comparing football versus running interventions was SMD = 0.68 (95% CI 0.06, 1.4). After correcting for SE/SD mix-ups and re-analysis, the effect was no longer statistically significant (SMD = 0.20 [95% CI − 0.10, 0.49)]). We found that 19.3% of randomised controlled trials reported SE rather than SD to describe sample variability. The relative frequency of the practice ranged from 0 to 25% across the seven journals sampled. Conclusions: We found the SE/SD mix-up had inflated estimates for the effects of football on aerobic fitness. Meta-analysts should be vigilant to avoid miscalculating effect sizes. Authors, reviewers and editors should avoid and discourage (respectively) the practice of reporting SE as a measure of sample variability in sports medicine research. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: equations & formulas research tables/charts Journal Article ougenre: Article language: English refInfo: holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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