Ethical dilemmas in scientific publication: pitfalls and solutions for editors.
(73/287)
Editors of scientific journals need to be conversant with the mechanisms by which scientific misconduct is amplified by publication practices. This paper provides definitions, ways to document the extent of the problem, and examples of editorial attempts to counter fraud. Fabrication, falsification, duplication, ghost authorship, gift authorship, lack of ethics approval, non-disclosure, 'salami' publication, conflicts of interest, auto-citation, duplicate submission, duplicate publications, and plagiarism are common problems. Editorial misconduct includes failure to observe due process, undue delay in reaching decisions and communicating these to authors, inappropriate review procedures, and confounding a journal's content with its advertising or promotional potential. Editors also can be admonished by their peers for failure to investigate suspected misconduct, failure to retract when indicated, and failure to abide voluntarily by the six main sources of relevant international guidelines on research, its reporting and editorial practice. Editors are in a good position to promulgate reasonable standards of practice, and can start by using consensus guidelines on publication ethics to state explicitly how their journals function. Reviewers, editors, authors and readers all then have a better chance to understand, and abide by, the rules of publishing. (+info)
Patterns of errors contributing to trauma mortality: lessons learned from 2,594 deaths.
(74/287)
OBJECTIVE: To identify patterns of errors contributing to inpatient trauma deaths. METHODS: All inpatient trauma deaths at a high-volume level I trauma center from 1996 to 2004 inclusive were audited. Data were collected with daily trauma registry chart abstraction, weekly morbidity and mortality reports, hospital quality assurance reports, and annual trauma registry analyses of risk of death using TRISS and HARM methodology. Deaths that met criteria for low to medium probability of mortality or those with quality of care concerns were analyzed for errors and then subjected to 3-stage peer review at weekly departmental, monthly hospital, and annual regional forums. Patterns of errors were constructed from the compiled longitudinal data. RESULTS: In 9 years, there were 44,401 trauma patient admissions and 2,594 deaths (5.8%), of which 601 met low to medium mortality risks. Sixty-four patients (0.14% admissions, 2.47% deaths) had recognized errors in care that contributed to their death. Important error patterns included: failure to successfully intubate, secure or protect an airway (16%), delayed operative or angiographic control of acute abdominal/pelvic hemorrhage (16%), delayed intervention for ongoing intrathoracic hemorrhage (9%), inadequate DVT or gastrointestinal prophylaxis (9%), lengthy initial operative procedures rather than damage control surgery in unstable patients (8%), over-resuscitation with fluids (5%), and complications of feeding tubes (5%). Resulting data-directed institutional and regional trauma system policy changes have demonstrably reduced the incidence of associated error-related deaths. CONCLUSIONS: Preventable deaths will occur even in mature trauma systems. This review has identified error patterns that are likely common in all trauma systems, and for which policy interventions can be effectively targeted. (+info)
Frequency and determinants of nonpublication of research in the stroke literature.
(75/287)
BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Selective nonpublication will yield publication bias and a published literature imperfectly representative of the full range of scientific findings. We evaluated the proportion of research abstracts presented at the leading United States research meeting in stroke, the International Stroke Conference (ISC), which were subsequently published as full-length articles and investigated the factors associated with full manuscript publication. METHODS: Features of all abstracts presented at the annual ISC meeting in February 2000 were analyzed. Search of the National Library of Medicine PubMed database and written communication with abstract authors was performed to determine conversion of abstracts to fully published manuscripts over the subsequent 5 years. RESULTS: Among the 353 abstracts presented at the 2000 International Stroke Conference, 108 were oral presentations and 245 posters. Overall, 202/353 (62.3%) resulted in full-length publications, with a median time to publication of 15 months. In multivariate analysis, factors increasing likelihood of full-length publication were: platform rather than poster presentations (odds ratio [OR] 3.0, 95% CI, 1.6 to 5.5), authors with a university affiliation (OR 2.2, 95% CI, 1.2 to 4.1), and European region of origin (OR 2.2, 95% CI, 1.1 to 4.4), whereas topic concerning community/risk factors decreased the likelihood of publication (OR 0.3, 95% CI, 0.16 to 0.74). Positive results, multicenter collaboration and industry sponsorship did not affect publication rate. CONCLUSIONS: Approximately 1 of every 3 abstracts presented at an international stroke meeting was not published as a full manuscript within 5 years. Poster abstracts were less likely to be published in full manuscript form than oral presentations. (+info)
Beyond open access: open discourse, the next great equalizer.
(76/287)
The internet is expanding the realm of scientific publishing to include free and open public debate of published papers. Journals are beginning to support web posting of comments on their published articles and independent organizations are providing centralized web sites for posting comments about any published article. The trend promises to give one and all access to read and contribute to cutting edge scientific criticism and debate. (+info)
Conflict of Interest Disclosure Policies and Practices in Peer-reviewed Biomedical Journals.
(77/287)
OBJECTIVE: We undertook this investigation to characterize conflict of interest (COI) policies of biomedical journals with respect to authors, peer-reviewers, and editors, and to ascertain what information about COI disclosures is publicly available. METHODS: We performed a cross-sectional survey of a convenience sample of 135 editors of peer-reviewed biomedical journals that publish original research. We chose an international selection of general and specialty medical journals that publish in English. Selection was based on journal impact factor, and the recommendations of experts in the field. We developed and pilot tested a 3-part web-based survey. The survey included questions about the presence of specific policies for authors, peer-reviewers, and editors, specific restrictions on authors, peer-reviewers, and editors based on COI, and the public availability of these disclosures. Editors were contacted a minimum of 3 times. RESULTS: The response rate for the survey was 91 (67%) of 135, and 85 (93%) of 91 journals reported having an author COI policy. Ten (11%) journals reported that they restrict author submissions based on COI (e.g., drug company authors' papers on their products are not accepted). While 77% report collecting COI information on all author submissions, only 57% publish all author disclosures. A minority of journals report having a specific policy on peer-reviewer 46% (42/91) or editor COI 40% (36/91); among these, 25% and 31% of journals state that they require recusal of peer-reviewers and editors if they report a COI. Only 3% of respondents publish COI disclosures of peer-reviewers, and 12% publish editor COI disclosures, while 11% and 24%, respectively, reported that this information is available upon request. CONCLUSION: Many more journals have a policy regarding COI for authors than they do for peer-reviewers or editors. Even author COI policies are variable, depending on the type of manuscript submitted. The COI information that is collected by journals is often not published; the extent to which such "secret disclosure" may impact the integrity of the journal or the published work is not known. (+info)
The planning and implementation of a faculty peer review teaching project.
(78/287)
OBJECTIVES: Describe the planning and implementation of a pilot peer review system, assess factors related to acceptance by faculty and administration, and suggest ways to increase the number of faculty members reviewed and serving as reviewers. DESIGN: A faculty-driven process was used to create a model for peer review. Faculty members completed a survey instrument with open-ended responses for indicating reasons for participation or nonparticipation, components of the evaluation process that they would like to see changed, and what they found most helpful or insightful about the process of peer review. ASSESSMENT: Faculty acceptance of and satisfaction with the peer review process is attributed to the development and implementation process being faculty driven and to peer reviews not being required for promotion and tenure decisions. Faculty members who were reviewed stated that the process was helpful and insightful and would lead to better teaching and learning. CONCLUSION: A successful faculty peer-review process was created and implemented within 6 weeks. All of the faculty members who chose to be peer reviewed or serve as reviewers reported satisfaction in gaining insights into their teaching, learning innovative approaches to their teaching, and gaining confidence in their teaching pedagogy. Techniques for achieving 100% participation in the peer review process should be addressed in the future. (+info)
Towards ubiquitous peer review strategies to sustain and enhance a clinical knowledge management framework.
(79/287)
Widespread cooperation between domain experts and front-line clinicians is a key component of any successful clinical knowledge management framework. Peer review is an established form of cooperation that promotes the dissemination of new knowledge. The authors describe three peer collaboration scenarios that have been implemented using the knowledge management infrastructure available at Intermountain Healthcare. Utilization results illustrating the early adoption patterns of the proposed scenarios are presented and discussed, along with succinct descriptions of planned enhancements and future implementation efforts. (+info)
Measuring performance directly using the veterans health administration electronic medical record: a comparison with external peer review.
(80/287)
BACKGROUND: Electronic medical records systems (EMR) contain many directly analyzable data fields that may reduce the need for extensive chart review, thus allowing for performance measures to be assessed on a larger proportion of patients in care. OBJECTIVE: This study sought to determine the extent to which selected chart review-based clinical performance measures could be accurately replicated using readily available and directly analyzable EMR data. METHODS: A cross-sectional study using full chart review results from the Veterans Health Administration's External Peer Review Program (EPRP) was merged to EMR data. RESULTS: Over 80% of the data on these selected measures found in chart review was available in a directly analyzable form in the EMR. The extent of missing EMR data varied by site of care (P<0.01). Among patients on whom both sources of data were available, we found a high degree of correlation between the 2 sources in the measures assessed (correlations of 0.89-0.98) and in the concordance between the measures using performance cut points (kappa: 0.86-0.99). Furthermore, there was little evidence of bias; the differences in values were not clinically meaningful (difference of 0.9 mg/dL for low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, 1.2 mm Hg for systolic blood pressure, 0.3 mm Hg for diastolic, and no difference for HgbA1c). CONCLUSIONS: Directly analyzable data fields in the EMR can accurately reproduce selected EPRP measures on most patients. We found no evidence of systematic differences in performance values among these with and without directly analyzable data in the EMR. (+info)