心理学科学中的发表偏倚:普遍性、识别和控制方法,以及对元分析使用的影响。
Publication bias in psychological science: prevalence, methods for identifying and controlling, and implications for the use of meta-analyses.
机构信息
Department of Psychology, Texas A&M International University, 5201 University Blvd., Laredo, TX 78041, USA.
出版信息
Psychol Methods. 2012 Mar;17(1):120-8. doi: 10.1037/a0024445. Epub 2011 Jul 25.
The issue of publication bias in psychological science is one that has remained difficult to address despite decades of discussion and debate. The current article examines a sample of 91 recent meta-analyses published in American Psychological Association and Association for Psychological Science journals and the methods used in these analyses to identify and control for publication bias. Of the 91 studies analyzed, 64 (70%) made some effort to analyze publication bias, and 26 (41%) reported finding evidence of bias. Approaches to controlling publication bias were heterogeneous among studies. Of these studies, 57 (63%) attempted to find unpublished studies to control for publication bias. Nonetheless, those studies that included unpublished studies were just as likely to find evidence for publication bias as those that did not. Furthermore, authors of meta-analyses themselves were overrepresented in unpublished studies acquired, as compared with published studies, suggesting that searches for unpublished studies may increase rather than decrease some sources of bias. A subset of 48 meta-analyses for which study sample sizes and effect sizes were available was further analyzed with a conservative and newly developed tandem procedure of assessing publication bias. Results indicated that publication bias was worrisome in about 25% of meta-analyses. Meta-analyses that included unpublished studies were more likely to show bias than those that did not, likely due to selection bias in unpublished literature searches. Sources of publication bias and implications for the use of meta-analysis are discussed.
心理学科学中的发表偏倚问题是一个尽管经过几十年的讨论和辩论,但仍然难以解决的问题。本文研究了美国心理学会和心理科学协会期刊上发表的 91 项最近的荟萃分析样本,以及这些分析中用于识别和控制发表偏倚的方法。在分析的 91 项研究中,64 项(70%)努力分析了发表偏倚,26 项(41%)报告发现了偏倚的证据。研究之间控制发表偏倚的方法存在差异。在这些研究中,57 项(63%)试图寻找未发表的研究来控制发表偏倚。尽管如此,那些纳入未发表研究的荟萃分析与那些没有纳入未发表研究的荟萃分析一样,发现发表偏倚的证据的可能性更高。此外,与已发表的研究相比,荟萃分析的作者在获得的未发表研究中被过度代表,这表明对未发表研究的搜索可能会增加而不是减少一些偏倚源。对可用研究样本量和效应量的 48 项荟萃分析进行了进一步分析,采用了一种保守的新开发的串联程序来评估发表偏倚。结果表明,大约 25%的荟萃分析存在令人担忧的发表偏倚。纳入未发表研究的荟萃分析比没有纳入未发表研究的荟萃分析更有可能出现偏倚,这可能是由于未发表文献搜索中的选择偏倚所致。本文讨论了发表偏倚的来源及其对荟萃分析使用的影响。