Bar Chart Unique harms are arranged along x-axis in an order of the authors’ choice (e.g., descending or ascending effect size, alphabetical). | Aggregate data | | | |
Dot Plot Unique harms are arranged along the y-axis in an order of the authors’ choice. | Aggregate data | – Comparative measure of effect (x-axis on the right panel of the figure) – Uncertainty (95% CI around points on the right panel of the figure) – Incidence/occurrence of each harm by trial arm (x-axis on the left panel of the figure) Note: Additional “panels” of information can be added to present data on other characteristics (e.g., the distribution of severity ratings for each unique harm) | | |
Heatmap Unique harms are arranged along the y-axis in an order of the authors’ choice. | Aggregate data | Note: Choose whichever subgroups are desired for exploration (e.g., male/female, young/ old, low/high dose, severe/not-severe, etc.) and restrict to events in that subgroup before calculating the standardized measure of effect. | | – Difficult to understand – Figure becomes long with many events (each unique harm gets a row) – Overwhelming with too many events and subgroups
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Volcano Plot Unique harms are represented by bubbles placed on an X-Y grid. | Aggregate data | – Comparative measure of effect (x-axis) – Overall occurrence of each harm (size of bubble) – P value (y-axis and opacity of bubble) – Trial arm positively associated with each harm (colour) Note: ‘Colour’ and ‘opacity’ of bubbles could be used to represent other dimensions (e.g., seriousness or whether the harms are recurrent) as their characteristics are already represented by the harms’ positions on the x and y-axis, respectively. | | |
Tendril Plot Unique harms are represented by distinct tendrils which are created by adding vectors created by the connection of two instances/events for a unique harm in a coordinate space. | Individual participant data | – Overall occurrence of each harm (size of each harm’s points) – P value (colour of each harm’s points) – Duration between each event (length of each vector) – Trial arm that had the event (direction of the vector)
| – Detailed visual for the timing of every event allows users to see which harms occur more often soon after exposure and which occur later or equally over time. – More useful for a few unique harms of interest
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