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All that glitters isn't gold: a survey on acknowledgment of limitations in biomedical studies
Acknowledgment of all serious limitations to research evidence is important for patient care and scientific progress. Formal research on how biomedical authors acknowledge limitations is scarce. To assess the extent to which limitations are acknowledged in biomedical publications explicitly, and imp...
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| Published in: | PloS one 2013-11, Vol.8 (11), p.e73623-e73623 |
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| container_end_page | e73623 |
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| creator | Ter Riet, Gerben Chesley, Paula Gross, Alan G Siebeling, Lara Muggensturm, Patrick Heller, Nadine Umbehr, Martin Vollenweider, Daniela Yu, Tsung Akl, Elie A Brewster, Lizzy Dekkers, Olaf M Mühlhauser, Ingrid Richter, Bernd Singh, Sonal Goodman, Steven Puhan, Milo A |
| description | Acknowledgment of all serious limitations to research evidence is important for patient care and scientific progress. Formal research on how biomedical authors acknowledge limitations is scarce.
To assess the extent to which limitations are acknowledged in biomedical publications explicitly, and implicitly by investigating the use of phrases that express uncertainty, so-called hedges; to assess the association between industry support and the extent of hedging.
We analyzed reporting of limitations and use of hedges in 300 biomedical publications published in 30 high and medium -ranked journals in 2007. Hedges were assessed using linguistic software that assigned weights between 1 and 5 to each expression of uncertainty.
Twenty-seven percent of publications (81/300) did not mention any limitations, while 73% acknowledged a median of 3 (range 1-8) limitations. Five percent mentioned a limitation in the abstract. After controlling for confounders, publications on industry-supported studies used significantly fewer hedges than publications not so supported (p = 0.028).
Detection and classification of limitations was--to some extent--subjective. The weighting scheme used by the hedging detection software has subjective elements.
Reporting of limitations in biomedical publications is probably very incomplete. Transparent reporting of limitations may protect clinicians and guideline committees against overly confident beliefs and decisions and support scientific progress through better design, conduct or analysis of new studies. |
| doi_str_mv | 10.1371/journal.pone.0073623 |
| format | article |
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To assess the extent to which limitations are acknowledged in biomedical publications explicitly, and implicitly by investigating the use of phrases that express uncertainty, so-called hedges; to assess the association between industry support and the extent of hedging.
We analyzed reporting of limitations and use of hedges in 300 biomedical publications published in 30 high and medium -ranked journals in 2007. Hedges were assessed using linguistic software that assigned weights between 1 and 5 to each expression of uncertainty.
Twenty-seven percent of publications (81/300) did not mention any limitations, while 73% acknowledged a median of 3 (range 1-8) limitations. Five percent mentioned a limitation in the abstract. After controlling for confounders, publications on industry-supported studies used significantly fewer hedges than publications not so supported (p = 0.028).
Detection and classification of limitations was--to some extent--subjective. The weighting scheme used by the hedging detection software has subjective elements.
Reporting of limitations in biomedical publications is probably very incomplete. Transparent reporting of limitations may protect clinicians and guideline committees against overly confident beliefs and decisions and support scientific progress through better design, conduct or analysis of new studies.</description><identifier>ISSN: 1932-6203</identifier><identifier>EISSN: 1932-6203</identifier><identifier>DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0073623</identifier><identifier>PMID: 24324540</identifier><language>eng</language><publisher>United States: Public Library of Science</publisher><subject>Bibliometrics ; Biomedical Research ; Committees ; Computer programs ; Decision analysis ; Design analysis ; Documents ; Epidemiology ; Gold ; Health care ; Hedging (Finance) ; Hospitals ; Internal medicine ; Medical research ; Patient care ; Peer review ; Preventive medicine ; Public health ; Publications - statistics & numerical data ; Studies ; Surveys ; Uncertainty</subject><ispartof>PloS one, 2013-11, Vol.8 (11), p.e73623-e73623</ispartof><rights>COPYRIGHT 2013 Public Library of Science</rights><rights>2013 ter Riet et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ (the “License”), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.</rights><rights>2013 ter Riet et al 2013 ter Riet et al</rights><lds50>peer_reviewed</lds50><oa>free_for_read</oa><woscitedreferencessubscribed>false</woscitedreferencessubscribed><citedby>FETCH-LOGICAL-c692t-9a7d9b3ec3aeca53107fdb08c59b2c0dabdb56e6ffdbe8d1bed5176bb2c3eb953</citedby><cites>FETCH-LOGICAL-c692t-9a7d9b3ec3aeca53107fdb08c59b2c0dabdb56e6ffdbe8d1bed5176bb2c3eb953</cites></display><links><openurl>$$Topenurl_article</openurl><openurlfulltext>$$Topenurlfull_article</openurlfulltext><thumbnail>$$Tsyndetics_thumb_exl</thumbnail><linktopdf>$$Uhttps://www.proquest.com/docview/1460161454/fulltextPDF?pq-origsite=primo$$EPDF$$P50$$Gproquest$$Hfree_for_read</linktopdf><linktohtml>$$Uhttps://www.proquest.com/docview/1460161454?pq-origsite=primo$$EHTML$$P50$$Gproquest$$Hfree_for_read</linktohtml><link.rule.ids>230,314,727,780,784,885,25753,27924,27925,37012,37013,44590,53791,53793,75126</link.rule.ids><backlink>$$Uhttps://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24324540$$D View this record in MEDLINE/PubMed$$Hfree_for_read</backlink></links><search><contributor>Ouzounis, Christos A.</contributor><creatorcontrib>Ter Riet, Gerben</creatorcontrib><creatorcontrib>Chesley, Paula</creatorcontrib><creatorcontrib>Gross, Alan G</creatorcontrib><creatorcontrib>Siebeling, Lara</creatorcontrib><creatorcontrib>Muggensturm, Patrick</creatorcontrib><creatorcontrib>Heller, Nadine</creatorcontrib><creatorcontrib>Umbehr, Martin</creatorcontrib><creatorcontrib>Vollenweider, Daniela</creatorcontrib><creatorcontrib>Yu, Tsung</creatorcontrib><creatorcontrib>Akl, Elie A</creatorcontrib><creatorcontrib>Brewster, Lizzy</creatorcontrib><creatorcontrib>Dekkers, Olaf M</creatorcontrib><creatorcontrib>Mühlhauser, Ingrid</creatorcontrib><creatorcontrib>Richter, Bernd</creatorcontrib><creatorcontrib>Singh, Sonal</creatorcontrib><creatorcontrib>Goodman, Steven</creatorcontrib><creatorcontrib>Puhan, Milo A</creatorcontrib><title>All that glitters isn't gold: a survey on acknowledgment of limitations in biomedical studies</title><title>PloS one</title><addtitle>PLoS One</addtitle><description>Acknowledgment of all serious limitations to research evidence is important for patient care and scientific progress. Formal research on how biomedical authors acknowledge limitations is scarce.
To assess the extent to which limitations are acknowledged in biomedical publications explicitly, and implicitly by investigating the use of phrases that express uncertainty, so-called hedges; to assess the association between industry support and the extent of hedging.
We analyzed reporting of limitations and use of hedges in 300 biomedical publications published in 30 high and medium -ranked journals in 2007. Hedges were assessed using linguistic software that assigned weights between 1 and 5 to each expression of uncertainty.
Twenty-seven percent of publications (81/300) did not mention any limitations, while 73% acknowledged a median of 3 (range 1-8) limitations. Five percent mentioned a limitation in the abstract. After controlling for confounders, publications on industry-supported studies used significantly fewer hedges than publications not so supported (p = 0.028).
Detection and classification of limitations was--to some extent--subjective. The weighting scheme used by the hedging detection software has subjective elements.
Reporting of limitations in biomedical publications is probably very incomplete. Transparent reporting of limitations may protect clinicians and guideline committees against overly confident beliefs and decisions and support scientific progress through better design, conduct or analysis of new studies.</description><subject>Bibliometrics</subject><subject>Biomedical Research</subject><subject>Committees</subject><subject>Computer programs</subject><subject>Decision analysis</subject><subject>Design analysis</subject><subject>Documents</subject><subject>Epidemiology</subject><subject>Gold</subject><subject>Health care</subject><subject>Hedging (Finance)</subject><subject>Hospitals</subject><subject>Internal medicine</subject><subject>Medical research</subject><subject>Patient care</subject><subject>Peer review</subject><subject>Preventive medicine</subject><subject>Public health</subject><subject>Publications - statistics & numerical 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Resource</delcategory><fulltext>fulltext</fulltext></delivery><addata><au>Ter Riet, Gerben</au><au>Chesley, Paula</au><au>Gross, Alan G</au><au>Siebeling, Lara</au><au>Muggensturm, Patrick</au><au>Heller, Nadine</au><au>Umbehr, Martin</au><au>Vollenweider, Daniela</au><au>Yu, Tsung</au><au>Akl, Elie A</au><au>Brewster, Lizzy</au><au>Dekkers, Olaf M</au><au>Mühlhauser, Ingrid</au><au>Richter, Bernd</au><au>Singh, Sonal</au><au>Goodman, Steven</au><au>Puhan, Milo A</au><au>Ouzounis, Christos A.</au><format>journal</format><genre>article</genre><ristype>JOUR</ristype><atitle>All that glitters isn't gold: a survey on acknowledgment of limitations in biomedical studies</atitle><jtitle>PloS one</jtitle><addtitle>PLoS One</addtitle><date>2013-11-20</date><risdate>2013</risdate><volume>8</volume><issue>11</issue><spage>e73623</spage><epage>e73623</epage><pages>e73623-e73623</pages><issn>1932-6203</issn><eissn>1932-6203</eissn><abstract>Acknowledgment of all serious limitations to research evidence is important for patient care and scientific progress. Formal research on how biomedical authors acknowledge limitations is scarce.
To assess the extent to which limitations are acknowledged in biomedical publications explicitly, and implicitly by investigating the use of phrases that express uncertainty, so-called hedges; to assess the association between industry support and the extent of hedging.
We analyzed reporting of limitations and use of hedges in 300 biomedical publications published in 30 high and medium -ranked journals in 2007. Hedges were assessed using linguistic software that assigned weights between 1 and 5 to each expression of uncertainty.
Twenty-seven percent of publications (81/300) did not mention any limitations, while 73% acknowledged a median of 3 (range 1-8) limitations. Five percent mentioned a limitation in the abstract. After controlling for confounders, publications on industry-supported studies used significantly fewer hedges than publications not so supported (p = 0.028).
Detection and classification of limitations was--to some extent--subjective. The weighting scheme used by the hedging detection software has subjective elements.
Reporting of limitations in biomedical publications is probably very incomplete. Transparent reporting of limitations may protect clinicians and guideline committees against overly confident beliefs and decisions and support scientific progress through better design, conduct or analysis of new studies.</abstract><cop>United States</cop><pub>Public Library of Science</pub><pmid>24324540</pmid><doi>10.1371/journal.pone.0073623</doi><tpages>e73623</tpages><oa>free_for_read</oa></addata></record> |
| fulltext | fulltext |
| identifier | ISSN: 1932-6203 |
| ispartof | PloS one, 2013-11, Vol.8 (11), p.e73623-e73623 |
| issn | 1932-6203 1932-6203 |
| language | eng |
| recordid | cdi_plos_journals_1460161454 |
| source | Publicly Available Content Database; PubMed |
| subjects | Bibliometrics Biomedical Research Committees Computer programs Decision analysis Design analysis Documents Epidemiology Gold Health care Hedging (Finance) Hospitals Internal medicine Medical research Patient care Peer review Preventive medicine Public health Publications - statistics & numerical data Studies Surveys Uncertainty |
| title | All that glitters isn't gold: a survey on acknowledgment of limitations in biomedical studies |
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