Understanding of statistical terms routinely used in meta-analyses: an international survey among researchers

Objective Biomedical literature is increasingly enriched with literature reviews and meta-analyses. We sought to assess the understanding of statistical terms routinely used in such studies, among researchers. Methods An online survey posing 4 clinically-oriented multiple-choice questions was conducted in an international sample of randomly selected corresponding authors of articles indexed by PubMed. Results A total of 315 unique complete forms were analyzed (participation rate 39.4%), mostly from Europe (48%), North America (31%), and Asia/Pacific (17%). Only 10.5% of the participants answered correctly all 4 “interpretation” questions while 9.2% answered all questions incorrectly. Regarding each question, 51.1%, 71.4%, and 40.6% of the participants correctly interpreted statistical significance of a given odds ratio, risk ratio, and weighted mean difference with 95% confidence intervals respectively, while 43.5% correctly replied that no statistical model can adjust for clinical heterogeneity. Clinicians had more correct answers than non-clinicians (mean score ± standard deviation: 2.27±1.06 versus 1.83±1.14, p