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22.3.7 Figures

The addition of one or two (at most) figures may help readers of an Overview better appreciate differences in effectiveness of the interventions being compared in the review. The preferred format for Overview figures is the ‘forest top plot’ where each row in the figure represents the results (summary effect and 95% confidence interval) of a meta-analysis comparing two interventions. Each figure should address a single outcome, but may include several pair-wise comparisons of interventions. Direct comparisons, calculated indirect comparisons, and calculated combinations of direct and indirect comparisons may be included in the same figure, but must be clearly labelled. The text should provide information about the methods used in such calculations.  An example of a forest top plot using data from the overview on enuresis (Russell 2006) is included in Figure 22.3.c.