Inter-rater agreement in the scoring of abstracts submitted to a primary care research conference.
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BACKGROUND: Checklists for peer review aim to guide referees when assessing the quality of papers, but little evidence exists on the extent to which referees agree when evaluating the same paper. The aim of this study was to investigate agreement on dimensions of a checklist between two referees when evaluating abstracts submitted for a primary care conference. METHODS: Anonymised abstracts were scored using a structured assessment comprising seven categories. Between one (poor) and four (excellent) marks were awarded for each category, giving a maximum possible score of 28 marks. Every abstract was assessed independently by two referees and agreement measured using intraclass correlation coefficients. Mean total scores of abstracts accepted and rejected for the meeting were compared using an unpaired t test. RESULTS: Of 52 abstracts, agreement between reviewers was greater for three components relating to study design (adjusted intraclass correlation coefficients 0.40 to 0.45) compared to four components relating to more subjective elements such as the importance of the study and likelihood of provoking discussion (0.01 to 0.25). Mean score for accepted abstracts was significantly greater than those that were rejected (17.4 versus 14.6, 95% CI for difference 1.3 to 4.1, p = 0.0003). CONCLUSIONS: The findings suggest that inclusion of subjective components in a review checklist may result in greater disagreement between reviewers. However in terms of overall quality scores, abstracts accepted for the meeting were rated significantly higher than those that were rejected. (+info)
Planning serials cancellations and cooperative collection development in the health sciences: methodology and background information.
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In an era of steady-state budgets many research and academic libraries must cancel a significant number of current serials to maintain acquisitions of monographs. Thus paper reviews several techniques that have been used or that are of potential use in a rational selection of titles for cancellation. The context of the proposed methodology involves a network of libraries rather than an individual library. The methodology was tested with specific health sciences serial titles held by University of California libraries and resource libraries in NLM Region XI. As a test for the proposed methodology, background data were collected on 600 current foreign language serial titles included in SERLINE and held by at least one of the libraries in the networks of interest. Price, major secondary service coverage with productivity/impact factors, extent of holdings, and average number of recorded circulations per year in several of the libraries were recorded for each title. With the use of several different rules, estimates were made of the subscription savings that might be realized. It seems feasible to extend the same methodology to other groups of serial titles. (+info)
Automatic and manual indexing performance in a small file of medical literature.
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A test of the performance of an automatic indexing procedure based on the processing of the full text of medical journal articles shows results comparable to those achieved using Excerpta Medica and MEDLARS manual indexing. A file of nineteen documents was partitioned by sixteen questions, for each of which two search strategies in each indexing language were formulated. The results were compared to ideal answers chosen by a fourth-year medical student who read the entire file and posed the questions. (+info)
Medical school libraries in the United States and Canada built between 1961 and 1971.
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Twenty-four medical school libraries in the United States and Canada built between 1961 and 1971 were surveyed by means of questionnaires and visits. Results indicated that half of these libraries will have reached maximum functional capacity approximately six years after they moved into their new quarters. Space for technical processing is generally much less than required. Special features and examples of effective planning are described, and problems in arrangement, traffic patterns for people and materials, and the lack of logical expansion space are discussed. Comparisons are made with a similar survey of twenty medical school libraries made in 1961. (+info)
Reporting of numerical and statistical differences in abstracts: improving but not optimal.
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OBJECTIVE: The reporting of relative risk reductions (RRRs) or absolute risk reductions (ARRs) to quantify binary outcomes in trials engenders differing perceptions of therapeutic efficacy, and the merits of P values versus confidence intervals (CIs) are also controversial. We describe the manner in which numerical and statistical difference in treatment outcomes is presented in published abstracts. DESIGN: A descriptive study of abstracts published in 1986 and 1996 in 8 general medical and specialty journals. INCLUSION CRITERIA: controlled, intervention trials with a binary primary or secondary outcome. Seven items were recorded: raw data (outcomes for each treatment arm), measure of relative difference (e.g., RRR), ARR, number needed to treat, P value, CI, and verbal statement of statistical significance. The prevalence of these items was compared between journals and across time. RESULTS: Of 5,293 abstracts, 300 met the inclusion criteria. In 1986, 60% of abstracts did not provide both the raw data and a corresponding P value or CI, while 28% failed to do so in 1Dr. Hux is a Career Scientist of the Ontario Ministry of Health and receives salary support from the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences in Ontario.996 ( P <.001; RRR of 53%; ARR of 32%; CI for ARR 21% to 43%). The variability between journals was highly significant ( P <.001). In 1986, 100% of abstracts lacked a measure of absolute difference while 88% of 1996 abstracts did so ( P <.001). In 1986, 98% of abstracts lacked a CI while 65% of 1996 abstracts did so ( P <.001). CONCLUSIONS: The provision of quantitative outcome and statistical quantitative information has significantly increased between 1986 and 1996. However, further progress can be made to make abstracts more informative. (+info)
Selective automated indexing of findings and diagnoses in radiology reports.
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The recent improvements in capabilities of desktop computers and communications networks give impetus for the development of clinical image repositories that can be used for patient care and medical education. A challenge in the use of these systems is the accurate indexing of images for retrieval performance acceptable to users. This paper describes a series of experiments aiming to adapt the SAPHIRE system, which matches text to concepts in the UMLS Metathesaurus, for the automated indexing of image reports. A series of enhancements to the baseline system resulted in a recall of 63% but a precision of only 30% in detecting concepts. At this level of performance, such a system might be problematic for users in a purely automated indexing environment. However, if the ability to retrieve images in repositories based on content in their reports is desired by clinical users, and no other current systems offer this functionality, then follow-up research questions include whether these imperfect results would be useful in a completely or partially automated indexing environment and/or whether other approaches can improve upon them. (+info)
Publication bias in gastroenterological research - a retrospective cohort study based on abstracts submitted to a scientific meeting.
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BACKGROUND: The aim of this study was to examine the determinants of publication and whether publication bias occurred in gastroenterological research. METHODS: A random sample of abstracts submitted to DDW, the major GI meeting (1992-1995) was evaluated. The publication status was determined by database searches, complemented by a mailed survey to abstract authors. Determinants of publication were examined by Cox proportional hazards model and multiple logistic regression. RESULTS: The sample included abstracts on 326 controlled clinical trials (CCT), 336 other clinical research reports (OCR), and 174 basic science studies (BSS). 392 abstracts (47%) were published as full papers. Acceptance for presentation at the meeting was a strong predictor of subsequent publication for all research types (overall, 54% vs. 34%, OR 2.3, 95% CI 1.7 to 3.1). In the multivariate analysis, multi-center status was found to predict publication (OR 2.8, 95% CI 1.6-4.9). There was no significant association between direction of study results and subsequent publication. Studies were less likely to be published in high impact journals if the results were not statistically significant (OR 0.5, 95 CI 95% 0.3-0.6). The author survey identified lack of time or interest as the main reason for failure to publish. CONCLUSIONS: Abstracts which were selected for presentation at the DDW are more likely to be followed by full publications. The statistical significance of the study results was not found to be a predictor of publication but influences the chances for high impact publication. (+info)
Database searches for qualitative research.
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Interest in the role of qualitative research in evidence-based health care is growing. However, the methods currently used to identify quantitative research do not translate easily to qualitative research. This paper highlights some of the difficulties during searches of electronic databases for qualitative research. These difficulties relate to the descriptive nature of the titles used in some qualitative studies, the variable information provided in abstracts, and the differences in the indexing of these studies across databases. (+info)