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Mild traumatic brain injury meta-analyses can obscure individual differences.
- Source :
- Brain Injury; Sep2010, Vol. 24 Issue 10, p1246-1255, 10p, 2 Charts, 4 Graphs
- Publication Year :
- 2010
-
Abstract
- Primary objective: Several published meta-analyses indicate that mild traumatic brain injury (MTBI) is associated with a favourable course of recovery over a period of days-to-weeks, with no indication of permanent impairment on neuropsychological testing by 3 months post-injury in group studies. These meta-analyses provide important but not definitive information relating to outcome from MTBI in individual patients. The purpose of this paper was to illustrate that a sub-group of patients with residual cognitive deficits could exist, yet be obscured using group inferential statistics. Main outcome and results: A sample of 30 concussed amateur athletes and a hypothetical sample of 30 adults who had sustained MTBIs were used to illustrate these statistical issues. In both groups, a minority of subjects with residual cognitive deficits were not identified using group statistics. Conclusions: It is important to appreciate that MTBI meta-analyses represent an aggregation of effect sizes derived from multiple groups across multiple studies. Therefore, this methodology could, theoretically, obscure small sub-group or individual effects. Implications for interpreting meta-analyses are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 02699052
- Volume :
- 24
- Issue :
- 10
- Database :
- Complementary Index
- Journal :
- Brain Injury
- Publication Type :
- Academic Journal
- Accession number :
- 52913151
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.3109/02699052.2010.490513