Journal of clinical epidemiology
-
Review
Lack of blinding of outcome assessors in animal model experiments implies risk of observer bias.
To examine the impact of not blinding outcome assessors on estimates of intervention effects in animal experiments modeling human clinical conditions. ⋯ Lack of blinding of outcome assessors in animal model experiments with subjective outcomes implies a considerable risk of observer bias.
-
Prognostication is difficult in a diverse patient population or when outcomes depend on multiple factors. This study derived and internally validated a model to predict risk of death from any cause within 1 year of admission to hospital. ⋯ Routinely collected administrative data can be used to accurately predict 1-year death risk in adults admitted to nonpsychiatric hospital services.
-
Network meta-analyses (NMAs) aim to rank the benefits (or harms) of interventions, based on all available randomized controlled trials. Thus, the identification of relevant data is critical. We assessed the conduct of the literature searches in NMAs. ⋯ Literature searches in NMAs could be improved by searching more sources, and by involving a librarian or information specialist.
-
Randomized Controlled Trial
The agreement between proxy and self-completed EQ-5D for care home residents was better for index scores than individual domains.
Proxy measures are an alternative source of data for care home residents who are unable to complete the health utility measure, but the agreement levels between residents and care home staff for the EQ-5D have not been investigated previously. The objective of the present study was to examine the inter-rater agreement levels for the reporting of EQ-5D by care home residents and staff, adjusting for the impact of clustering. ⋯ Proxies appear to be an acceptable source of data for index scores and QALYs but may be less reliable if individual domains are considered.
-
We explored how readers interpret authors' roles based on authorship order and corresponding author. ⋯ Academic department chairs' perception of authors' contributions was influenced by corresponding author designation. Without authors' explicit contributions in research articles, many readers may draw false conclusions about author credit and accountability.