Bmc Med Res Methodol
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Bmc Med Res Methodol · Dec 2017
Review Comparative StudyA scoping review of comparisons between abstracts and full reports in primary biomedical research.
Evidence shows that research abstracts are commonly inconsistent with their corresponding full reports, and may mislead readers. In this scoping review, which is part of our series on the state of reporting of primary biomedical research, we summarized the evidence from systematic reviews and surveys, to investigate the current state of inconsistent abstract reporting, and to evaluate factors associated with improved reporting by comparing abstracts and their full reports. ⋯ This scoping review revealed that abstracts are frequently inconsistent with full reports, and efforts are needed to improve the consistency of abstract reporting in the primary biomedical community.
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Bmc Med Res Methodol · Dec 2017
Abstract analysis method facilitates filtering low-methodological quality and high-bias risk systematic reviews on psoriasis interventions.
Article summaries' information and structure may influence researchers/clinicians' decisions to conduct deeper full-text analyses. Specifically, abstracts of systematic reviews (SRs) and meta-analyses (MA) should provide structured summaries for quick assessment. This study explored a method for determining the methodological quality and bias risk of full-text reviews using abstract information alone. ⋯ The methodological quality and bias risk of SRs may be determined by abstract's quality and completeness analyses. Our proposal aimed to facilitate synthesis of evidence evaluation by clinical professionals lacking methodological skills. External validation is necessary.
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Bmc Med Res Methodol · Dec 2017
A survey of prevalence of narrative and systematic reviews in five major medical journals.
Systematic reviews may provide less biased evidence than narrative reviews because they observe a strict methodology, similarly to primary studies. Hence, for clinical research questions, systematic reviews should be the study design of choice. It would be important to evaluate the prevalence and characteristics of narrative and systematic reviews published in prominent medical journals. Researchers and clinicians give great value to articles published in such scientific journals. This study sought to evaluate the prevalence and characteristics of narrative and systematic reviews in the five highest-ranked general medical journals and investigate the associations among type of review, number of citations, and impact factor (IF). ⋯ Non-systematic evidence is the most prevalent type of evidence in reviews published in the five highest-ranked general medical journals. Narrative reviews were more frequently published in journals with higher IF. We recommend that journals limit their space for narrative information, and to address clinical research questions, these journals consider publishing systematic evidence exclusively.
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Bmc Med Res Methodol · Dec 2017
Comparative StudyMultiple Score Comparison: a network meta-analysis approach to comparison and external validation of prognostic scores.
Prediction models and prognostic scores have been increasingly popular in both clinical practice and clinical research settings, for example to aid in risk-based decision making or control for confounding. In many medical fields, a large number of prognostic scores are available, but practitioners may find it difficult to choose between them due to lack of external validation as well as lack of comparisons between them. ⋯ We applied a network meta-analytic methodology to externally validate and concurrently compare the prognostic properties of clinical scores. Our large-scale external validation indicates that the scores with the best discriminative properties to predict 3 year mortality in patients with COPD are ADO and eBODE.