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metaviz (version 0.3.1)

viz_sunset: Sunset (power-enhanced) funnel plot

Description

Creates a funnel plot with power regions and computes power-related statistics.

Usage

viz_sunset(
  x,
  y_axis = "se",
  true_effect = NULL,
  method = "FE",
  sig_level = 0.05,
  power_stats = TRUE,
  power_contours = "discrete",
  contours = FALSE,
  sig_contours = TRUE,
  text_size = 3,
  point_size = 2,
  xlab = "Effect",
  ylab = NULL,
  x_trans_function = NULL,
  x_breaks = NULL,
  y_breaks = NULL,
  x_limit = NULL,
  y_limit = NULL
)

Arguments

x

data.frame or matrix with the effect sizes of all studies (e.g., log odds ratios, or Cohen d) in the first column and their respective standard errors in the second column. Alternatively, x can be the output object of function rma.uni from package metafor; then effect sizes and standard errors are extracted from x.

y_axis

character string indicating which y axis should be used in the funnel plot. Available options are "se" (default) for standard error and "precision" for the reciprocal of the standard error.

true_effect

numeric scalar. Which true effect should be assumed for power calculations? The default is NULL, for which the meta-analytic summary effect is used (computed with method).

method

character string indicating the method used to compute the meta-analytic summary effect. Can be any method argument from rma.uni (e.g., "FE" for the fixed effect model (default), or "DL" for the random effects model using the DerSimonian-Laird method to estimate \(\tau^2\)). If input x is an output object of function rma.uni from package metafor, then the method is extracted from x.

sig_level

logical scalar. For which significance level alpha should the study power be computed?

power_stats

logical scalar. Should power-related statistics be computed and printed in the caption of the plot? (see details)

power_contours

character string specifying how different power regions are plotted. Can be either "continuous" or "discrete" (default).

contours

logical scalar indicating if classic funnel plot confidence contours and the summary effect should be displayed.

sig_contours

logical scalar. Should significance contours be drawn (at the 0.05 or 0.01 level using a two-sided Wald test)?

text_size

numeric value. Size of text in the funnel plot. Default is 3.

point_size

numeric value. Size of the study points in the funnel plot. Default is 2.

xlab

character string specifying the label of the x axis.

ylab

character string specifying the label of the y axis.

x_trans_function

function to transform the labels of the x axis. Common uses are to transform log-odds-ratios or log-risk-ratios with exp to their original scale (odds ratios and risk ratios), or Fisher's z values back to correlation coefficients using tanh.

x_breaks

numeric vector of values for the breaks on the x-axis. When used in tandem with x_trans_function the supplied values should be not yet transformed.

y_breaks

numeric vector of values for the breaks on the y-axis.

x_limit

numeric vector of length two with user specified x axis limits.

y_limit

numeric vector of length two with user specified y axis limits.

Value

A power enhanced ("sunset") funnel plot is created using ggplot2.

Details

The funnel plot is the most widely used diagnostic plot in meta-analysis, primarily to assess small-study effects. The sunset (power-enhanced) funnel plot incorporates study-level power information in the funnel display. This directly allows to examine the power studies had to detect an effect of interest (e.g., the observed meta-analytic summary effect), whether funnel plot asymmetry is driven by underpowered but significant studies, and to visually assess if there is an excess of low-powered significant effects in the meta-analysis (conceptually related to the test of excess significance, Ioannidis & Trikalinos, 2007). For effect sizes assumed to be normally distributed (e.g., Cohen d, log OR), the power corresponding to a given standard error is computed by using a two-sided Wald test and (by default) the meta-analytic summary effect as assumed true effect. Colored regions of different power levels and a second axis with study level power are shown in the funnel plot. In addition, power-related statistics are shown: a) The median power of all studies, b) the true effect size necessary such that the median power of the studies would have been 33% or 66%, c) results of a test of excess significance (Ioannidis & Trikalinos, 2007), and d) the R-Index for expected replicability (Schimmack, 2016).

References

Ioannidis, J. P., & Trikalinos, T. A. (2007). An exploratory test for an excess of significant findings. Clinical Trials, 4, 245-253.

Schimmack, U. (2016). The replicability-index: Quantifying statistical research integrity. Retrieved from https://replicationindex.wordpress.com/2016/01/31/a-revised-introduction-to-the-r-index/

Examples

Run this code
# NOT RUN {
library(metaviz)
# Create a power-enhanced ("sunset") funnel plot using confidence and significance contours
viz_sunset(x = homeopath[, c("d", "se")], contours = TRUE)
# }

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