Author response: Prevalence and incidence of epilepsy: A systematic review and meta-analysis of international studies

We thank Zack and Kobau for their interest in our article.1 We agree there is marked heterogeneity among studies and acknowledged this throughout the article. We attempted to mitigate heterogeneity by using a random effects model and reported medians with 25th and 75th percentiles alongside pooled estimates to provide readers with a more complete picture of data distribution and heterogeneity. In the article, we also identified geographic outliers.1 Despite marked heterogeneity, pooled estimates and medians were similar. Together, they provide a valid overview of this literature and were accompanied in the article by appropriately cautionary statements about their interpretation.1 Further, we attempted formal analyses of sources of heterogeneity, which proved difficult and did not yield definitive conclusions, and provided these results in supplementary e-tables.1

Source: Neurology - August 7, 2017 Category: Neurology Authors: Jette, N., Fiest, K. M., Sauro, K. M., Wiebe, S., Patten, S. B. Tags: WRITECLICK & amp;reg; EDITOR ' S CHOICE Source Type: research