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 Meta analysis and CI

Rachel Grant's profile image
Rachel Grant posted Fri February 06, 2026 04:19 AM

Good morning I have recently started trying to use SPSS for meta analysis (previously used stata). Normally I have an effect size and an upper and lower CI and I enter this into  Stata. However in SPSS I cannot find a way to enter upper and lower confidence intervals as there is only one box. What fo I do? Thank you

Jorge Araujo Criollo's profile image
Jorge Araujo Criollo

In SPSS, confidence intervals are typically computed as output from statistical procedures (like t-tests or regression), not directly entered as input data. However, if you're trying to input effect sizes with their associated confidence intervals, such as in a meta-analysis where you have pre-calculated CIs for each study, you can do this in the Meta-Analysis procedure.

Here's how to enter upper and lower confidence intervals:

Go to Analyze > Meta Analysis > Meta-Analysis (this requires the Meta Analysis add-on module, if you don't have it, you may need to install it via IBM SPSS Statistics).

In the Meta-Analysis dialog box, click the Effect Size tab.

Under Input type, select Confidence interval from the dropdown menu. This will reveal two input boxes:

One for the Lower CI (lower bound of the confidence interval).
One for the Upper CI (upper bound of the confidence interval).
Specify the variables in your dataset that contain these values (e.g., select the column for lower CI and the column for upper CI).

Proceed with the rest of the setup (e.g., specify the study ID, effect size metric, etc.), then click OK to run the analysis.

If you're seeing only one box, it's likely because a different Input type is selected (e.g., "Effect size and standard error" shows one box for the standard error). Switch to "Confidence interval" to access both boxes.

If this doesn't match what you're trying to do (e.g., if you're working with raw data entry or a different procedure like charts/error bars), provide more details about the specific dialog or context, and I can help refine the steps.
For SPSS documentation, refer to the IBM Knowledge Center: SPSS Meta Analysis Help.