Bmc Med Res Methodol
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Bmc Med Res Methodol · May 2014
Comparative StudyEfficient clinical evaluation of guideline quality: development and testing of a new tool.
Evaluating the methodological quality of clinical practice guidelines is essential before deciding which ones which could best inform policy or practice. One current method of evaluating clinical guideline quality is the research-focused AGREE II instrument. This uses 23 questions scored 1-7, arranged in six domains, which requires at least two independent testers, and uses a formulaic weighted domain scoring system. Following feedback from time-poor clinicians, policy-makers and managers that this instrument did not suit clinical need, we developed and tested a simpler, shorter, binary scored instrument (the iCAHE Guideline Quality Checklist) designed for single users. ⋯ The iCAHE Guideline Quality Checklist has promising psychometric properties and clinical utility.
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Systematic Reviews (SRs) of experimental animal studies are not yet common practice, but awareness of the merits of conducting such SRs is steadily increasing. As animal intervention studies differ from randomized clinical trials (RCT) in many aspects, the methodology for SRs of clinical trials needs to be adapted and optimized for animal intervention studies. The Cochrane Collaboration developed a Risk of Bias (RoB) tool to establish consistency and avoid discrepancies in assessing the methodological quality of RCTs. A similar initiative is warranted in the field of animal experimentation. ⋯ SYRCLE's RoB tool is an adapted version of the Cochrane RoB tool. Widespread adoption and implementation of this tool will facilitate and improve critical appraisal of evidence from animal studies. This may subsequently enhance the efficiency of translating animal research into clinical practice and increase awareness of the necessity of improving the methodological quality of animal studies.
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Bmc Med Res Methodol · Jan 2014
Meta AnalysisAn overview of the statistical methods reported by studies using the Canadian community health survey.
The Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS) is a cross-sectional survey that has collected information on health determinants, health status and the utilization of the health system in Canada since 2001. Several hundred articles have been written utilizing the CCHS dataset. Previous analyses of statistical methods utilized in the literature have focused on a particular journal or set of journals to understand the statistical literacy required for understanding the published research. In this study, we describe the statistical methods referenced in the published literature utilizing the CCHS dataset(s). ⋯ Our study shows a diverse set of analysis methods being referenced in the CCHS literature, however, the literature heavily relies on only a subset of all possible statistical tools. This information can be used in identifying gaps in statistical methods that could be applied to future analysis of public health surveys, insight into training and educational programs, and also identifies the level of statistical literacy needed to understand the published literature.
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Bmc Med Res Methodol · Jan 2014
Thresholds for statistical and clinical significance in systematic reviews with meta-analytic methods.
Thresholds for statistical significance when assessing meta-analysis results are being insufficiently demonstrated by traditional 95% confidence intervals and P-values. Assessment of intervention effects in systematic reviews with meta-analysis deserves greater rigour. ⋯ If followed, the proposed eight-step procedure will increase the validity of assessments of intervention effects in systematic reviews of randomised clinical trials.
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Bmc Med Res Methodol · Jan 2014
A comparison of three clustering methods for finding subgroups in MRI, SMS or clinical data: SPSS TwoStep Cluster analysis, Latent Gold and SNOB.
There are various methodological approaches to identifying clinically important subgroups and one method is to identify clusters of characteristics that differentiate people in cross-sectional and/or longitudinal data using Cluster Analysis (CA) or Latent Class Analysis (LCA). There is a scarcity of head-to-head comparisons that can inform the choice of which clustering method might be suitable for particular clinical datasets and research questions. Therefore, the aim of this study was to perform a head-to-head comparison of three commonly available methods (SPSS TwoStep CA, Latent Gold LCA and SNOB LCA). ⋯ Our subjective judgement was that Latent Gold offered the best balance of sensitivity to subgroups, ease of use and presentation of results with these datasets but we recognise that different clustering methods may suit other types of data and clinical research questions.