Assessing the amount of heterogeneity in random-effects meta-analysis.

In a random-effects meta-analysis, a new confidence interval for the heterogeneity parameter is proposed. With this interval, the amount of heterogeneity in a meta-analysis can be assessed so that it can be judged whether the pooling of the estimates is meaningful. Through suitable corrections of the lower bound, based on the treatment effect measure of interest, the resulting interval yields satisfactory results with respect to the predefined confidence coefficient. Lower and upper bound of the interval can be used for one-sided hypothesis testing on the amount of the underlying between-trial variability.