Enriching meta-analyses through scoping review, bibliometrics, and alternative impact metrics: Visualizing study characteristics, hidden risk of bias, societal influence, and research translation

TL;DR

This paper proposes a comprehensive framework combining scoping reviews, bibliometrics, and alternative impact metrics to enrich meta-analyses by visualizing study features, biases, societal impact, and research translation.

Contribution

It introduces an integrated approach that enhances meta-analyses with qualitative insights, visualization tools, and societal influence measures, including new methods and R code examples.

Findings

Visualized study characteristics and knowledge gaps.

Assessed non-independence and funding influences.

Measured societal impact through alternative metrics.

Abstract

We present a framework consisting of three approaches that can enhance meta-analyses: 1) scoping reviews (evidence map), 2) bibliometrics, and 3) alternative impact metrics. These three "enrichment" approaches facilitate the research synthesis of both quantitative and qualitative evidence, along with academic and non-academic influences. While the meta-analysis yields quantitative insights (e.g., overall estimates), the enrichment analyses provide user-friendly summaries of qualitative information on the evidence base. Scoping reviews can visualize study characteristics, unravelling knowledge gaps and methodological differences. Bibliometric analysis offers a visual assessment of the non-independent evidence, such as hyper-dominant authors and countries, and funding sources, potentially informing the risk of bias. Impact metric analysis employs alternative metrics to gauge societal influence and research translation (e.g., policy and patent citations) of studies in the meta-analysis. To illustrate the application of this framework, we provide sample visualizations and R code.