Meta-analysis of single proportions - number of events / non-events missing in rma.uni object

[guido-s]

Classification

Feature Request

Summary

Hi Wolfgang,

It looks like the number of events 'xi' and non-events 'mi' are not part of an rma.uni object (look for 666 in output of the two examples).

I guess the same is true for 'ti' and 'ri' in the meta-analysis of single rates or single correlations.

BTW, is there any difference between list elements 'ni' and 'ni.f'?

Best wishes,
Guido

Reproducible Example

str(rma.uni(xi = 666 + 0:1, ni = 2 * 666 + c(0, 2), measure = "PR"))
str(rma.uni(xi = 666 + 0:1, mi = 666 + 0:1, measure = "PR"))

sessionInfo()

Post output of sessionInfo() below:

R version 4.0.3 (2020-10-10)
Platform: x86_64-apple-darwin17.0 (64-bit)
Running under: macOS Big Sur 10.16

Matrix products: default
BLAS:   /Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Versions/4.0/Resources/lib/libRblas.dylib
LAPACK: /Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Versions/4.0/Resources/lib/libRlapack.dylib

locale:
[1] en_US.UTF-8/en_US.UTF-8/en_US.UTF-8/C/en_US.UTF-8/en_US.UTF-8

attached base packages:
[1] stats     graphics  grDevices utils     datasets  methods   base

other attached packages:
[1] metafor_2.5-69 Matrix_1.2-18

loaded via a namespace (and not attached):
[1] compiler_4.0.3  mathjaxr_1.0-1  nlme_3.1-150    grid_4.0.3
[5] lattice_0.20-41

[wviechtb]

Hi Guido,

Indeed, this info is not currently stored inside the returned object. The same applies to various other inputs (e.g., rma.uni(ri=0.5, ni=50, measure="COR")$ri is NULL). Is there a specific reason why you need this?

As for ni vs ni.f - the former has missings removed, the later does not. Compare:

rma.uni(xi = c(10,NA), ni = c(50,50), measure = "PR")$ni
rma.uni(xi = c(10,NA), ni = c(50,50), measure = "PR")$ni.f

[guido-s]

Hi Wolfgang,

I was working on a function rma2meta() which takes a metafor object and 'transforms' it to a meta object, e.g., to produce a forest plot with meta or conduct a Copas analysis using metasens. Internally, I use R functions like metaprop() requiring the number of events and sample sizes. This started more like a toy project, however, I think it could be quite handy.

Best wishes, Guido

[wviechtb]

In principle, I could add the input variables to the returned object. This actually happens for a few measures (such as "RD", "RR", and "OR") to make things like labbe() work (e.g., rma(measure="RR", ai=tpos, bi=tneg, ci=cpos, di=cneg, data=dat.bcg)$ai.f). I have to think about how to do this properly, since these objects are such a mess anyway (don't look at str(rma(measure="RR", ai=tpos, bi=tneg, ci=cpos, di=cneg, data=dat.bcg))). I will add this to my to-do list, but not sure when I will get to this. I'll keep this issue open as a reminder.

[bwiernik]

@wviechtb In psychmeta and easystats, we use attributes to store some of those sorts of things