Fig. 5

A Leverage versus residual deviance. The leverage plot helps to assess model fitness. Points that lie outside the line with average leverage of 3 can generally be identified as contributing to the model's poor fit. All included studies (represented by the green dots) were congregated between the average leverage parabola lines of 1.5 and 2.5, indicating that all studies fitted well in the model. B The stem plot represents the posterior residual deviance of each study arm. The number of stems represents the 43 study arms compared in the network meta-analysis. Each stem indicates the residual deviance of each arm in each included study. The shorter the stem, the smaller the residual deviance, the better the model fit for each data point. None of the stems featured residual deviance greater than 2 – reflecting the model’s fitness. C This plot represents each arm’s contribution to the residual deviance for the NMA (x-axis) and the unrelated mean effect (UME) inconsistency models (y-axis) along with the line of equality. The points on the equality line means there is no improvement in model fit when using the inconsistency model, suggesting that there is no evidence of inconsistency. Points above the equality line means they have a smaller residual deviance for the consistency model indicating a better fit in the NMA consistency model and points below the equality line means they have a better fit in the UME inconsistency model. Most of the included study arms were found on the equality line indicating minimal inconsistency and optimum model fitness