Yea, the Cochrane meta-study aggregates a bunch of heterogenous studies so the aggregated results are confusing to analyze. The unfortunate reality is that it is complicated to get a complete picture—one may have to look at the individual studies one by one if they truly want to come to a complete understanding of the lit.
Yes, and I did look at something like four of the individual studies of depression, focusing on the ones testing pills so they would be comparable to the Prozac trial. As I said in the post, they all gave me the same impression: I didn’t see a difference between the placebo and no-pill groups. So it was surprising to see the summary value of −0.25 SMD. Maybe it’s some subtle effect in the studies I looked at which you can see once you aggregate. But maybe it’s heterogeneity, and the effect is coming from the studies I didn’t look at. As I mentioned in the post, not all of the placebo interventions were pills.
Yea, the Cochrane meta-study aggregates a bunch of heterogenous studies so the aggregated results are confusing to analyze. The unfortunate reality is that it is complicated to get a complete picture—one may have to look at the individual studies one by one if they truly want to come to a complete understanding of the lit.
Yes, and I did look at something like four of the individual studies of depression, focusing on the ones testing pills so they would be comparable to the Prozac trial. As I said in the post, they all gave me the same impression: I didn’t see a difference between the placebo and no-pill groups. So it was surprising to see the summary value of −0.25 SMD. Maybe it’s some subtle effect in the studies I looked at which you can see once you aggregate. But maybe it’s heterogeneity, and the effect is coming from the studies I didn’t look at. As I mentioned in the post, not all of the placebo interventions were pills.