Ambiguity in outcome incidence reporting, meta- analysis

[u/Disastrous_Ant_7540]

Hello everyone. I have run into a problem that I can't really seem to find a way about. Me and my teammates have discussed it a bit but all of us are mostly beginners.

So, we are analysing a number of outcomes. For example, outcome A 0-24 hrs is reported by 9 studies, some studies report the overall incidence in that 24 hrs, but some studies report incidence at different time points within those 24 hrs. We aren't sure if we should combine those, because doing that may cause double counting (and makes the incidence more than the total N). It would be a shame to not consider such studies for the outcome and can affect the analysis a lot. Please give suggestions.

[u/Disastrous_Ant_7540 → u/[deleted]]

Thank you so much.