Forest plot interpretation

Question

[rednalf]

For my study I performed a meta-analysis of viral load measurements to test whether the specific interaction between A and B influences its levels.

This is the forest plot I obtained using R:

However, I don't know how to interpret it. I understand the this result is significant because p=0.0073 and because the overall effect estimate 95% CI does not overlap 0. However, what does it mean that the diamond is on the right side of the forest plot?

Answer 1

[skbrimer]

I'm going to wade into this question gently, I'm not a statistician and there are statisticians here who can correct me if I'm incorrect.

My understanding of a forest plot is the diamond is the overall impact of your five studies. Assuming that treatment a is the left head side and treatment b is the right hand side; it is showing that treatment b has a small influence on the outcome.

Other than that I'm not sure I can help. I've never played with forest plots, in R or otherwise and I'm not familiar in how they are created.