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Publication rates of research projects of an internal funding program of a university medical center in Germany: A retrospective study (2004-2013).

ABSTRACT: OBJECTIVES:Non-publication and publication bias are topics of considerable importance to the scientific community. These issues may limit progress toward the 3R principle for animal research, promote waste of public resources, and generate biased interpretations of clinical outcomes. To investigate current publishing practices and to gain some understanding of the extent to which research results are reported, we examined publication rates of research projects that were approved within an internal funding program of the Faculty of Medicine at a university medical center in Germany, which is exemplary for comparable research funding programs for the promotion of young researchers in Germany and Europe. METHODS:We analyzed the complete set (n = 363) of research projects that were supported by an internal funding program between 2004 and 2013. We divided the projects into four different proposal types that included those that required an ethics vote, those that included an animal proposal, those that included both requirements, and those that included neither requirement. RESULTS:We found that 65% of the internally funded research projects resulted in at least one peer-reviewed publication; this increased to 73% if other research contributions were considered, including abstracts, book and congress contributions, scientific posters, and presentations. There were no significant differences with respect to publication rates based on (a) the clinic/institute of the applicant, (b) project duration, (c) scope of funding or (d) proposal type. CONCLUSION:To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to explore publication rates associated with early-career medical research funding. As >70% of the projects ultimately generated some form of publication, the program was overall effective toward this goal; however, non-publication of research results is still prevalent. Further research will explore the reasons underlying non-publication. We hope to use these findings to develop strategies that encourage publication of research results.

SUBMITTER: Deutsch S

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7703943 | biostudies-literature | 2020

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Publication rates of research projects of an internal funding program of a university medical center in Germany: A retrospective study (2004-2013).

Deutsch Susanne S Reuter Silke S Rose Astrid A Tolba René R

PloS one 20201130 11

<h4>Objectives</h4>Non-publication and publication bias are topics of considerable importance to the scientific community. These issues may limit progress toward the 3R principle for animal research, promote waste of public resources, and generate biased interpretations of clinical outcomes. To investigate current publishing practices and to gain some understanding of the extent to which research results are reported, we examined publication rates of research projects that were approved within a ...[more]

PMID: 33253269

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Project description:BACKGROUND:Different studies have suggested that web search data are useful in forecasting several phenomena from the field of economics to epidemiology or health issues. OBJECTIVE:This study aimed to (1) evaluate the correlation between suicide rates released by the Spanish National Statistics Institute (INE) and internet search trends in Spain reported by Google Trends (GT) for 57 suicide-related terms representing major known risks of suicide and an analysis of these results using a linear regression model and (2) study the differential association between male and female suicide rates published by the INE and internet searches of these 57 terms. METHODS:The study period was from 2004 to 2013. In this study, suicide data were collected from (1) Spain's INE and (2) local internet search data from GT, both from January 2004 to December 2013. We investigated and validated 57 suicide-related terms already tested in scientific studies before 2015 that would be the best predictors of new suicide cases. We then evaluated the nowcasting effects of a GT search through a cross-correlation analysis and by linear regression of the suicide incidence data with the GT data. RESULTS:Suicide rates in Spain in the study period were positively associated (r<-0.2) for the general population with the search volume for 7 terms and negatively for 1 from the 57 terms used in previous studies. Suicide rates for men were found to be significantly different than those of women. The search term, "allergy," demonstrated a lead effect for new suicide cases (r=0.513; P=.001). The next significant correlating terms for those 57 studied were "antidepressant," "alcohol abstinence," "relationship breakup" (r=0.295, P=.001; r=0.295, P=.001; and r=0.268, P=.002, respectively). Significantly different results were obtained for men and women. Search terms that correlate with suicide rates of women are consistent with previous studies, showing that the incidence of depression is higher in women than in men, and showing different gender searching patterns. CONCLUSIONS:A better understanding of internet search behavior of both men and women in relation to suicide and related topics may help design effective suicide prevention programs based on information provided by search robots and other big data sources.

Project description:ObjectivesThe medical field is facing a clinician-scientist shortage. Medical schools could foster the clinician-scientist workforce by offering students research opportunities. Most medical schools offer elective research programmes. Subsequently, a subset of doctors graduates without any research experience. Mandatory research projects may be more sufficient to develop clinician-scientist, but take more supervision and curricular time. There is limited insight in the scientific outcomes of mandatory research experiences. This study aims to examine publication rates of a mandatory research experience, identify factors associated with publication, and includes postgraduate research engagement.Design and settingProspective follow-up study involving 10 cohorts of medical students' mandatory research projects from Leiden University Medical Center.ParticipantsAll medical students who conducted their research project between 2008 and 2018 (n=2329) were included.Main outcome measurePublication rates were defined as peer-reviewed scientific publications, including research papers, reviews, and published meeting abstracts. Postgraduate research engagement was defined as research participation and dissemination of research at scientific conferences or in journals.ResultsIn total, 644 (27.7%) of all mandatory research experiences resulted in publication, with students mainly as first (n=984, 42.5%) or second author (n=587, 25.3%) and above world average citation impact (mean normalised journal score 1.29, mean normalised citation score 1.23). Students who conducted their research in an academic centre (adjusted OR 2.82; 95% CI 2.10 to 3.77), extended their research (adjusted OR 1.73; 95% CI 1.35 to 2.20), were involved in an excellency track (adjusted OR 2.08; 95% CI 1.44 to 3.01), or conducted clinical (adjusted OR 2.08; 95% CI 1.15 to 3.74) or laboratory (adjusted OR 2.16; 95% CI 1.16 to 4.01) research published their research more often. Later as junior doctors, this group significantly more often disseminate their research results at scientific conferences (adjusted OR 1.89; 95% CI 1.11 to 3.23) or in journals (adjusted OR 1.98; 95% CI 1.14 to 3.43).ConclusionsOur findings suggest that a significant subset of hands-on mandatory research projects with flexible learning pathways result in tangible research output with proper impact and that such successful experiences can be considered as diving board towards a research-oriented career.

Project description:OBJECTIVES:To identify underlying causes for failure of medical thesis projects and the constantly high drop-out rate in Germany from the supervisors' perspective and to compare the results with the students' perspective. SETTING:Cross-sectional survey. Online questionnaire for survey of medical thesis supervisors among the staff of Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Germany. Published, earlier longitudinal survey among students for comparison. PARTICIPANTS:1069 thesis supervisors participated. DATA EXTRACTION AND SYNTHESIS:Data are presented using descriptive statistics, and the χ2 test served to compare the results among supervisors with the earlier data from the longitudinal survey of doctoral students. PRIMARY AND SECONDARY OUTCOMES:Not applicable. This survey is an observational study. RESULTS:Of 3653 potential participants, 1069 (29.3%) supervising 3744 doctoral candidates participated in the study. Supervisors considered themselves to be highly motivated and to offer adequate supervision. On the other hand, 87% stated that they did not feel well prepared for thesis supervision. Supervisors gave lack of timeliness of doctoral students and personal differences (p=0.024 and p=0.001) as the main reasons for terminating thesis projects. Doctoral students predominantly mentioned methodological problems and difficult subjects as critical issues (p=0.001 and p<0.001). Specifically, students felt ill prepared for the statistical part of their research-49.5% stated that they never received statistical assistance, whereas 97% of supervisors claimed to help their students with statistical analysis. CONCLUSIONS:The authors found that both thesis supervisors and medical students feel ill prepared for their roles in the process of a medical dissertation. Contradictory reasons for terminating medical thesis projects based on supervisors' and students' self-assessment suggest a lack of communication and true scientific collaboration between supervisors and doctoral students as the major underlying issue that requires resolution.

Dataset Information

Publication rates of research projects of an internal funding program of a university medical center in Germany: A retrospective study (2004-2013).

Publications

Publication rates of research projects of an internal funding program of a university medical center in Germany: A retrospective study (2004-2013).

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