Practical Considerations and Challenges When Conducting an Individual Participant Data (IPD) Meta-Analysis.

This chapter provides a broad overview of the use of individual participant (sometimes referred to as patient) data (IPD ) within meta-analyses, the associated advantages of using IPD in meta-analysis compared to aggregate data, and when IPD should be used in meta-analysis.This chapter also outlines the steps of conducting an IPD meta-analysis, with practical guidance relating to requesting and obtaining IPD for meta-analysis. Challenges that can be associated with conducting an IPD meta-analysis are also discussed, including consideration of availability bias, when a subset of the relevant IPD is not available for meta-analysis.