Authors need to be cautious about undertaking subgroup analyses, and interpreting any that they do. Some considerations are outlined here for selecting characteristics (also called explanatory variables, potential effect modifiers or covariates) which will be investigated for their possible influence on the size of the intervention effect. These considerations apply similarly to subgroup analyses and to meta-regressions. Further details may be obtained from Oxman and Guyatt (Oxman 1992) and Berlin and Antman (Berlin 1994).