Individual participant data (also known as individual patient data, often abbreviated IPD) is raw data from individual participants, and is often used in the context of

meta-analysis A meta-analysis is a statistical analysis that combines the results of multiple scientific studies. Meta-analyses can be performed when there are multiple scientific studies addressing the same question, with each individual study reporting me ...

. The

International Committee of Medical Journal Editors The ICMJE recommendations (full title, "Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals") are a set of guidelines produced by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors for stan ...

(ICMJE) has stated that sharing of deidentified individual participant data is an ethical obligation.

IPD meta-analysis

In an IPD meta-analysis, patient-level data from multiple studies or settings are combined to address a certain research question. IPD meta-analyses tend to be common for large-scale and international projects, and they are less limited than aggregate data (AD) meta-analyses in terms of the availability and quality of data they can use. Due to the high level of precision and consistency this approach allows for (which in turn makes it easier for researchers to minimize

heterogeneity Homogeneity and heterogeneity are concepts often used in the sciences and statistics relating to the uniformity of a substance or organism. A material or image that is homogeneous is uniform in composition or character (i.e. color, shape, siz ...

), it is considered the gold standard of evidence synthesis. Common aims for an IPD meta-analysis are * to evaluate the safety or efficacy of medical interventions * to identify modifiers of treatment effect * to evaluate the accuracy of diagnostic tests * to evaluate the association of prognostic markers * to develop multivariable prediction models (rules) * to evaluate the predictive performance of prognostic models Over the past few decades, meta-analyses conducted with IPD (also known as IPD meta-analyses) have become increasingly popular.

References

External links

Individual participant data meta-analysis information
at the Cochrane website Meta-analysis {{Statistics-stub