Dataset Information

A survey of prevalence of narrative and systematic reviews in five major medical journals.

ABSTRACT:

Background

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).

Methods

We surveyed the five highest-ranked medical journals (The New England Journal of Medicine, The Lancet, The Journal of the American Medical Association, The BMJ, and Annals of Internal Medicine) for narrative and systematic reviews published between June 2015 and June 2016. We independently selected and extracted the data from the reviews by strictly following the pre-determined eligibility criteria (Systematic and narrative reviews that focused on the management of diseases). We conducted regression analyses to investigate the associations among review type, number of citations, and IF. We also descriptively reported narrative reviews containing some methodology that might be reproducible.

Results

Two hundred seventy-five reviews were included: 75 (27%) systematic; 126 (46%) narrative with some methodology reported, and 74 (27%) narrative reviews. In comparison to systematic reviews, narrative reviews were more frequently published in journals with higher IF (risk ratio [RR]?=?1.114 (95% CI 1.080 to 1.149). Systematic reviews received more citations than narrative reviews (group formed by narrative and narrative with some methodology reported (RR?=?0.985 95% CI 0.978 to 0.991).

Conclusions

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.

SUBMITTER: Faggion CM

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5746017 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Publications

A survey of prevalence of narrative and systematic reviews in five major medical journals.

Faggion Clovis Mariano CM Bakas Nikolaos P NP Wasiak Jason J

BMC medical research methodology 20171228 1

<h4>Background</h4>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 journ ...[more]

PMID: 29281975

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Project description:ImportanceHigh-quality peer reviews are often thought to be essential to ensuring the integrity of the scientific publication process, but measuring peer review quality is challenging. Although imperfect, review word count could potentially serve as a simple, objective metric of review quality.ObjectiveTo determine the prevalence of very short peer reviews and how often they inform editorial decisions on research articles in 3 leading general medical journals.Design, setting, and participantsThis cross-sectional study compiled a data set of peer reviews from published, full-length original research articles from 3 general medical journals (The BMJ, PLOS Medicine, and BMC Medicine) between 2003 and 2022. Eligible articles were those with peer review data; all peer reviews used to make the first editorial decision (ie, accept vs revise and resubmit) were included.Main outcomes and measuresPrevalence of very short reviews was the primary outcome, which was defined as a review of fewer than 200 words. In secondary analyses, thresholds of fewer than 100 words and fewer than 300 words were used. Results were disaggregated by journal and year. The proportion of articles for which the first editorial decision was made based on a set of peer reviews in which very short reviews constituted 100%, 50% or more, 33% or more, and 20% or more of the reviews was calculated.ResultsIn this sample of 11 466 reviews (including 6086 in BMC Medicine, 3816 in The BMJ, and 1564 in PLOS Medicine) corresponding to 4038 published articles, the median (IQR) word count per review was 425 (253-575) words, and the mean (SD) word count was 520.0 (401.0) words. The overall prevalence of very short (<200 words) peer reviews was 1958 of 11 466 reviews (17.1%). Across the 3 journals, 843 of 4038 initial editorial decisions (20.9%) were based on review sets containing 50% or more very short reviews. The prevalence of very short reviews and share of editorial decisions based on review sets containing 50% or more very short reviews was highest for BMC Medicine (693 of 2585 editorial decisions [26.8%]) and lowest for The BMJ (76 of 1040 editorial decisions [7.3%]).Conclusion and relevanceIn this study of 3 leading general medical journals, one-fifth of initial editorial decisions for published articles were likely based at least partially on reviews of such short length that they were unlikely to be of high quality. Future research could determine whether monitoring peer review length improves the quality of peer reviews and which interventions, such as incentives and norm-based interventions, may elicit more detailed reviews.

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Project description:Importance:Multiple analyses in a clinical trial can increase the probability of inaccurately concluding that there is a statistically significant treatment effect. However, to date, it is unknown how many randomized clinical trials (RCTs) perform adjustments for multiple comparisons, the lack of which could lead to erroneous findings. Objectives:To assess the prevalence of multiplicity and whether appropriate multiplicity adjustments were performed among cardiovascular RCTs published in 6 medical journals with a high impact factor. Design, Setting, and Participants:In this cross-sectional study, cardiovascular RCTs were selected from all over the world, characterized as North America, Western Europe, multiregional, and rest of the world. Data were collected from past issues of 3 cardiovascular journals (Circulation, European Heart Journal, and Journal of the American College of Cardiology) and 3 general medicine journals (JAMA, The Lancet, and The New England Journal of Medicine) with high impact factors published between August 1, 2015, and July 31, 2018. Supplements and trial protocols of each of the included RCTs were also searched for multiplicity. Data were analyzed December 20 to 27, 2018. Exposures:Data from the selected RCTs were extracted and verified independently by 2 researchers using a structured data instrument. In case of disagreement, a third reviewer helped to achieve consensus. An RCT was considered to have multiple treatment groups if it had more than 2 arms; multiple outcomes were defined as having more than 1 primary outcome, and multiple analyses were defined as analysis of the same outcome variable in multiple ways. Multiplicity was examined only for the analysis of the primary end point. Main Outcomes and Measures:Outcomes of interest were percentages of primary analyses that performed multiplicity adjustment of primary end points. Results:Of 511 cardiovascular RCTs included in this analysis, 300 (58.7%) had some form of multiplicity; of these 300, only 85 (28.3%) adjusted for multiplicity. Intervention type and funding source had no statistically significant association with the reporting of multiplicity risk adjustment. Trials that assessed mortality vs nonmortality outcomes were more likely to contain a multiplicity risk in their primary analysis (66.3% [177 of 267] vs 50.4% [123 of 244]; P?<?.001), and larger trials vs smaller trials were less likely to make any adjustments for multiplicity (35.6% [52 of 146] vs 21.4% [33 of 154]; P?=?.001). Conclusions and Relevance:Findings from this study suggest that cardiovascular RCTs published in medical journals with high impact factors demonstrate infrequent adjustments to correct for multiple comparisons in the primary end point. These parameters may be improved by more standardized reporting.

Dataset Information

A survey of prevalence of narrative and systematic reviews in five major medical journals.

Background

Methods

Results

Conclusions

Publications

A survey of prevalence of narrative and systematic reviews in five major medical journals.

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