Mild traumatic brain injury meta-analyses can obscure individual differences

Content Provider	Scilit
Author	Iverson, Grant L.
Copyright Year	2010
Description	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.
Related Links	http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.3109/02699052.2010.490513
Ending Page	1255
Page Count	10
Starting Page	1246
ISSN	02699052
e-ISSN	1362301X
DOI	10.3109/02699052.2010.490513
Journal	Brain Injury
Issue Number	10
Volume Number	24
Language	English
Publisher	Informa UK Limited
Publisher Date	2010-07-19
Access Restriction	Open
Subject Keyword	Journal: Brain Injury Anesthesiology Mtbi Meta Analyses Traumatic Brain Adults Illustrate Deficits Cognitive Obscure Outcome
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article
Subject	Neuroscience Developmental and Educational Psychology Neurology (clinical)