Solved – standardized mean difference vs raw mean difference

meta-analysisrstata

Is there a difference between standardized mean difference and raw mean difference when conducting meta analysis or systematic review and the measurement scales are same, would SMD and raw mean difference be the same ?

Best Answer

The purpose of using SMD is to uniform scale before they are combined. So if you already have same measurement scale, SMD is not necessary. According to this Cochrane page, the standardized mean difference is used as a summary statistic in meta-analysis when the studies all assess the same outcome but measure it in a variety of ways (for example, all studies measure depression but they use different psychometric scales). In this circumstance it is necessary to standardize the results of the studies to a uniform scale before they can be combined. The standardized mean difference expresses the size of the intervention effect in each study relative to the variability observed in that study.

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