[R-meta] Add a reference/citation number to author name in forest plot

Hi Dylan,

Depends to what extent you want to do this 'manually'. Here is an example:

library(metafor)
dat <- dat.bcg

labs <- paste(dat$author, dat$year)
labs[1] <- expression(paste("Aronson,", plain()^1, " 1948"))

res <- rma(ai=tpos, bi=tneg, ci=cpos, di=cneg, data=dat, measure="RR", method="REML")
forest(res, slab = labs)

So here I am 'hardcoding' the author, reference number, and year number for the first study and the same could be done for the others. If you don't have a lot of studies, then this could be done by hand.

If you want to do this 'programmatically', it gets a bit more tricky, because you have to substitute values, plus generate an expression that can be used for 'math plotting'. A bit of a nightmarish solution would be:

labs <- mapply(function(x,y,z) as.expression(bquote(.(x)^.(y)*","~.(z))), dat$author, dat$trial, dat$year)
forest(res, slab = labs)

Best,
Wolfgang

-----Original Message-----
From: Dylan Johnson [mailto:dylanr.johnson at mail.utoronto.ca]
Sent: Monday, 08 February, 2021 23:02
To: r-sig-meta-analysis at r-project.org
Cc: Viechtbauer, Wolfgang (SP)
Subject: Add a reference/citation number to author name in forest plot

Hello,

The journal that I am submitting to has requested that I add AMA format reference
numbers for each article in the forest plot, in the format:

Johnson et al.,1 2020

Does anyone have advice for how I can go about this with the forest.rma function?

Thanks!

Dylan

Dylan Johnson, MSc
MA?Student,?School and Clinical Child Psychology
Department of?Applied Psychology?and?Human Development
University of Toronto
252 Bloor Street West
Toronto, ON M5S 1V6