A forest plot in a meta-analysis displays:

A forest plot in a meta-analysis displays:

• A. The geographic distribution of studies.
• B. Study effects with confidence intervals and the overall pooled estimate.
• C. The email addresses of authors.
• D. The number of citations per study.

Answer: (B)

A forest plot is a visual summary of effect sizes across studies in a meta-analysis, showing each study’s estimate with its confidence interval and the overall pooled estimate. This layout lets you quickly see whether individual studies point in the same direction (benefit, harm, or no effect), how precise each estimate is, and how the combined result looks, including the width of the confidence interval around the pooled effect (often shown as a diamond). It focuses on quantitative results rather than study metadata. It’s not about where studies were conducted (geographic distribution), nor about authors’ contact details or how often papers are cited, which are not part of the effect-size synthesis presented in a forest plot.

A forest plot is a visual summary of effect sizes across studies in a meta-analysis, showing each study’s estimate with its confidence interval and the overall pooled estimate. This layout lets you quickly see whether individual studies point in the same direction (benefit, harm, or no effect), how precise each estimate is, and how the combined result looks, including the width of the confidence interval around the pooled effect (often shown as a diamond). It focuses on quantitative results rather than study metadata.

It’s not about where studies were conducted (geographic distribution), nor about authors’ contact details or how often papers are cited, which are not part of the effect-size synthesis presented in a forest plot.