Thread: Meta analysis possible if only Relative Risks and 95% CI's are available?

Dear members,

My knowledge of statistics is extremely limited. Since a few months I am wondering if it is possible to perform a meta analysis in SPSS if only Relative Risks (RR's) and 95% CI's are available from scientific publications.

Here is a link to a table showing a meta-analysis based on RR's from 16 different publications. Each RR is described in addition to it's 95% CI and the % weight it is given in the analysis: http://aje.oxfordjou....expansion.html

My question is: Can I enter this data in SPSS and perform a meta-analysis myself? If so, can somebody tell me how to I must enter the data? As far as I am concerned the example can be based on the following 3 RR's:

RR = 1.06 (0.36-3.12) % weight = 8%.
RR = 0.76 (0.49-1.18) % weight = 38%.
RR = 0.90 (0.69-1.18) % weight = 54%.

Thanx!