Department of Health Promotion and Human Behavior, Kyoto University Graduate School of Medicine / School of Public Health, Kyoto, Japan; Department of Nephrology and Dialysis, Kyoritsu Hospital, Japan; Scientific Research Works Peer Support Group (SRWS-PSG), Osaka, Japan.
Department of Health Promotion and Human Behavior, Kyoto University Graduate School of Medicine / School of Public Health, Kyoto, Japan; Intensive Care Unit, Jikei University Hospital, Tokyo, Japan.
J Clin Epidemiol. 2022 May;145:92-100. doi: 10.1016/j.jclinepi.2022.01.017. Epub 2022 Jan 25.
This study aims to describe the distribution of anchor-based minimal important change (MIC) estimates in standard deviation (SD) units and examine if the robustness of such estimates depends on the specific SD used or on the methodological credibility of the anchor-based estimates.
We included all anchor-based MIC estimates from studies published in MEDLINE and relevant literature databases upto October 2018. Each MIC was converted to SD units using baseline, endpoint, and change from baseline SDs. We performed a descriptive analysis of MICs in SD units and checked how the distribution would change if MICs with low methodological credibility were excluded from the analysis.
We included 1,009 MIC estimates from 182 studies. The medians and interquartile ranges of MICs in SD units were 0.43 (0.25 to 0.69), 0.42 (0.22 to 0.70), and 0.51 (0.28 to 0.78) for baseline, endpoint, and change SD units, respectively. Some MICs were extremely large or small. The distribution did not change significantly after excluding MICs estimated by less credible methods.
The size of the universally applicable MIC in SD units could not be determined. Anchor-based MICs in SD units were widely distributed, with more than half in the range of 0.2 to 0.8.
本研究旨在描述基于锚定的最小有意义变化（MIC）估计值在标准差（SD）单位中的分布，并探讨这些估计值的稳健性是否取决于所使用的特定 SD 值或基于锚定的估计值的方法学可信度。
我们纳入了截至 2018 年 10 月在 MEDLINE 和相关文献数据库中发表的所有基于锚定的 MIC 估计值。每个 MIC 均使用基线、终点和从基线 SD 转换为 SD 单位。我们对 SD 单位中的 MIC 进行了描述性分析，并检查了如果从分析中排除方法学可信度较低的 MIC，分布将如何变化。
我们纳入了来自 182 项研究的 1009 个 MIC 估计值。SD 单位中 MIC 的中位数和四分位间距分别为 0.43（0.25 至 0.69）、0.42（0.22 至 0.70）和 0.51（0.28 至 0.78），分别为基线、终点和变化 SD 单位。一些 MIC 值非常大或非常小。在排除估计方法可信度较低的 MIC 后，分布没有显著变化。
无法确定 SD 单位中普遍适用的 MIC 的大小。SD 单位中的基于锚定的 MIC 分布广泛，超过一半的 MIC 值在 0.2 至 0.8 范围内。
