Osteoarthritis pain (pooled across scales)

Method

Standardised mean difference for osteoarthritis pain pooled across whichever pain instrument each constituent trial used, the mixture of instruments differing between meta-analyses. The defining property of this node is that no single instrument is held constant across the pooled estimate.

The method is part of the endpoint identity. Studies measuring the same quantity by a different method are held as separate endpoints.

Notes

The named single-instrument pain nodes are the near-miss: the WOMAC pain subscale in points and visual analogue scale pain in millimetres. This pooled index has NO physical unit and is not back-convertible to millimetres or WOMAC points without each constituent trial's standard deviation, so an effect size here cannot be compared with, added to, or substituted for either. Its composition also differs between reviews, which means two edges to this node from two meta-analyses of the same literature are not measuring the same mixture. Matching a named-instrument paper here throws away the instrument the source did supply.