Increasing accuracy in documentation through the application of a structured emergency nursing framework: A multisite quasi-experimental study.

Getting more grip on genetic risk prediction studies: the GRIPS statement

Poor reporting of biomedical research has been a persistent and prominent problem throughout modern history. In many different scientific fields, study results have failed to be reproduced and replicated, oftentimes due to incomplete reporting. When information is missing about how a study was designed, conducted, and analyzed, researchers and clinicians are unable to use results to inform health policies and clinical care. To address this issue, reporting guidelines (RG) were created to establish the minimum criteria that authors need to disclose when discussing study results. A reporting guideline for observational studies was published in 2007 which contains 22-items and guidance for authors of case-control, cohort, and cross-sectional studies. The Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (STROBE) Statement is supported by many journals and editorial groups, however, at quite low rates. Lack of awareness is widespread and it is unclear what authors think about STROBE. Furthermore, while STROBE been expanded upon for specific fields and methodologies through the creation of “extensions” – little is known about perceptions towards these documents, their content, or usefulness. In order to better implement STROBE and reporting guidelines like it, research is needed into current processes by authors and how their environment affects their work. The work in this dissertation was guided by the Promoting Action on Research Implementation in Health Services (PARIHS) knowledge translation strategy. This approach looks at the 1) evidence, 2) context, and 3) facilitators in order to implement research successfully. Transforming STROBE from simply a reporting guideline into an educational tool required investigation into these three facets. I began by investigating the content in the STROBE extensions to identify strengths and weaknesses in the checklist items. Results found that the content in the STROBE extensions is problematic as it is sometimes redundant – potentially indicating a poor understanding of the concepts within STROBE or issues with its content. Concurrently, I determined the endorsement rates of the extensions to establish the publishing context in which authors are working. I found that journals are largely not endorsing STROBE and the language that they use is ambiguous and vague. The STROBE extensions are endorsed at extremely low rates or not at all. Next, I assessed researcher’s awareness of, experiences with, and attitudes towards the STROBE checklist. This established the facilitators, timing and motivators (context), and perceptions (evidence) of use. The second project found that there is a large disagreement regarding the level of specificity desired in STROBE and its usefulness. Generally, authors are not opposed to using it but there is often no strong motivating force. Their coauthors do not use it and journals are not requiring it. Authors also hold some internal views that are detrimental to the promotion of STROBE, such as the over-confidence in one’s abilities. The work from the first two projects provided the content and support for an educational intervention that is integrated within the writing process, accessible by a worldwide audience, and open-source and editable. It is built using R and is open-source and editable via GitHub and the repository is publicly launched alongside this dissertation.

This study investigated the effects of effort-reward imbalance (ERI) on emergency nurses' turnover intention and the role of depressive symptoms between ERI and turnover intention. Turnover intention is crucial for clinical practice due to its relationship with turnover behaviour and destructive effect on stability of nursing staff. The ERI is a mainstream model to explain job stress, which seems to be one of the key variables, but the direct evidence is not adequate. In addition, there have been only a few studies looking into the complexity of the relationship between ERI and turnover intention, and more research is needed. This is a cross-sectional study conducted from July to August 2018, and the Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (STROBE) guidelines were followed. We employed a standardised questionnaire to collect sociodemographic information and target turnover intention. Hierarchical multiple logistic regression and mediation analyses were performed for the data analyses. This study included responses from 17,582 emergency nurses in China. On turnover intention, ERI exerted both direct effect and indirect mediating effect. The results also indicate that depressive symptoms partially mediated the effect of ERI on turnover intention, and that 27.4% of this effect can be explained by mediating effects. To improve the turnover intention, it is necessary to consider reducing ERI and depressive symptoms of emergency nurses as powerful measures not to be ignored. This study provides important insights regarding how nursing administrators should better reduce the workload of caregivers and improve depressive symptoms to avoid turnover intention.

Risk of myocardial infarction, ischemic stroke, and cardiovascular death in patients with atopic dermatitis

Application of the Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (STROBE) statement to publications on endoscopic treatment for vesicoureteral reflux

Background: Reporting of observational studies in veterinary research presents challenges that often are not addressed in published reporting guidelines. Objective: To develop an extension of the STROBE (Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology) statement that addresses unique reporting requirements for observational studies in veterinary medicine related to health, production, welfare, and food safety. Design: Consensus meeting of experts. Setting: Mississauga, Canada. Participants: Seventeen experts from North America, Europe, and Australia. Methods: Experts completed a pre-meeting survey about whether items in the STROBE statement should be added to or modified to address unique issues related to observational studies in animal species with health, production, welfare, or food-safety outcomes. During the meeting, each STROBE item was discussed to determine whether or not re-wording was recommended and whether additions were warranted. Anonymous voting was used to determine consensus. Results: Six items required no modifications or additions. Modifications or additions were made to the STROBE items 1 (title and abstract), 3 (objectives), 5 (setting), 6 (participants), 7 (variables), 8 (data sources-measurement), 9 (bias), 10 (study size), 12 (statistical methods), 13 (participants), 14 (descriptive data), 15 (outcome data), 16 (main results), 17 (other analyses), 19 (limitations), and 22 (funding). Conclusion: The methods and processes used were similar to those used for other extensions of the STROBE statement. The use of this STROBE statement extension should improve reporting of observational studies in veterinary research by recognizing unique features of observational studies involving food-producing and companion animals, products of animal origin, aquaculture, and wildlife.

Many beginning writers, especially medical residents, feel difficulties in writing journal articles. However, illogical and unscientific papers are not accepted for publication even if their topics are creative and interesting. The authors should do their best to convince reviewers and readers of their opinions using evidence through reasoning, explanation, and data interpretation.

Much biomedical research is observational. The reporting of such research is often inadequate, which hampers the assessment of its strengths and weaknesses and of a study's generalisability. The Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (STROBE) Initiative developed recommendations on what should be included in an accurate and complete report of an observational study. We defined the scope of the recommendations to cover three main study designs: cohort, case–control and cross-sectional studies. We convened a 2-day workshop in September 2004, with methodologists, researchers, and journal editors to draft a checklist of items. This list was subsequently revised during several meetings of the coordinating group and in e-mail discussions with the larger group of STROBE contributors, taking into account empirical evidence and methodological considerations. The workshop and the subsequent iterative process of consultation and revision resulted in a checklist of 22 items (the STROBE Statement) that relate to the title, abstract, introduction, methods, results, and discussion sections of articles. 18 items are common to all three study designs and four are specific for cohort, case–control, or cross-sectional studies. A detailed Explanation and Elaboration document is published separately and is freely available on the websites of PLoS Medicine, Annals of Internal Medicine and Epidemiology. We hope that the STROBE Statement will contribute to improving the quality of reporting of observational studies.

The Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (STROBE) statement: guidelines for reporting observational studies

Epidemic of Childhood Obesity: Implications for Kidney Disease

BackgroundApproximately 90% of currently published clinical and public health research is in the form of observational studies. Having a detailed and registered study protocol prior to data collection is important in any empirical study. Without this, there is no reliable way to assess the occurrence of publication bias, outcome reporting bias, and other protocol deviations. However, there is currently no solid guidance available on the information that a protocol for an observational study should contain.ObjectiveThe aim of this study is to formulate the Standardized Protocol Items Recommendations for Observational Studies (SPIROS) reporting guidelines, which focus on 3 main study designs of analytical epidemiology: cohort, case-control, and cross-sectional studies.MethodsA scoping review of published protocol papers of observational studies in epidemiology will identify candidate items for the SPIROS reporting guidelines. The list of items will be extended with the Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (STROBE) checklist items and recommendations from the SPIROS steering committee. This long list serves as the basis for a 2-round Delphi survey among experts to obtain consensus on which items to include. Each candidate item from the long list will be rated on a 5-point Likert scale to assess relevance for inclusion in the SPIROS reporting guidelines. Following the Delphi survey, an expert-driven consensus workshop will be convened to finalize the reporting guidelines.ResultsA scoping review of published observational study protocols has been completed, with 59 candidate items identified for inclusion into the Delphi survey, itself launched in early 2020.ConclusionsThis project aims to improve the timeliness, completeness, and clarity of study protocols of observational studies in analytical epidemiology by producing expert-based recommendations of items to be addressed. These reporting guidelines will facilitate and encourage researchers to prepare and register study protocols of sufficient quality prior to data collection in order to improve the transparency, reproducibility, and quality of observational studies.International Registered Report Identifier (IRRID)PRR1-10.2196/17864

Retrospective chart review. To compare short-term clinical and radiographic complications between iliac screw (IS) and S2 alar-iliac (S2AI) screw fixation techniques in the adult and pediatric populations. Pelvic fixation with lumbosacral implants is in widespread practice with numerous indications. Several techniques for spinopelvic fixation have been described in the literature. Although the iliac screw technique is widely practiced, it presents several challenges, including the use of connectors, more lateral surgical dissection, and some complaints of pain over the posterior pelvis. The S2AI method has recently been proposed as an alternative technique that minimizes these complications. We retrospectively reviewed the charts of 65 adult patients (43 IS, 22 S2AI) and 55 pediatric patients (40 IS/unit rod, 15 S2AI) in a consecutive series who underwent spinopelvic fixation. Acute, spinopelvic implant-related, and delayed complications, including persistent pain over the gluteal region occurring longer than 3 months postoperatively, were recorded from both clinical and radiographic encounters. Statistical analyses were performed among the adult and pediatric group, respectively, as well as a pooled cohort. The adult cohort found an 18.6% absolute risk reduction (ARR) in implant loosening (P=0.029) and a 21.1% ARR (P=0.05) in late pain with the S2AI method. In the pediatric population, the S2AI method demonstrated a 22.2% ARR (P=0.049) in both occurrence of revision surgery secondary to spinopelvic implant failure and late pain. In the pooled cohort, the S2AI method had a 13% ARR (P=0.033) in acute infections, 18.1% ARR (P=0.003) in implant loosening, 14.5% ARR (P=0.009) in revision surgery, 18.7% ARR (P=0.015) in late pain, and a 10.8% ARR (P=0.031) in delayed wound issues. The S2AI technique is associated with significantly less clinical and radiographic complications in both the pediatric and adult populations when compared with the iliac screws technique. Level III.

Comparison of Complications and Revisions After Sacral 2 Alar Iliac Screw and Iliac Screw Fixation for Sacropelvic Fixation in Pediatric and Adult Populations: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Much medical research is observational. The reporting of observational studies is often of insufficient quality. Poor reporting hampers the assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of a study and the generalisability of its results. Taking into account empirical evidence and theoretical considerations, a group of methodologists, researchers, and editors developed the Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (STROBE) recommendations to improve the quality of reporting of observational studies. The STROBE Statement consists of a checklist of 22 items, which relate to the title, abstract, introduction, methods, results and discussion sections of articles. Eighteen items are common to cohort studies, case–control studies and cross-sectional studies and four are specific to each of the three study designs. The STROBE Statement provides guidance to authors about how to improve the reporting of observational studies and facilitates critical appraisal and interpretation of studies by reviewers, journal editors and readers. This explanatory and elaboration document is intended to enhance the use, understanding, and dissemination of the STROBE Statement. The meaning and rationale for each checklist item are presented. For each item, one or several published examples and, where possible, references to relevant empirical studies and methodological literature are provided. Examples of useful flow diagrams are also included. The STROBE Statement, this document, and the associated Web site (http://www.strobe-statement.org/) should be helpful resources to improve reporting of observational research.

Much medical research is observational. The reporting of observational studies is often of insufficient quality. Poor reporting hampers the assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of a study and the generalisability of its results. Taking into account empirical evidence and theoretical considerations, a group of methodologists, researchers, and editors developed the Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (STROBE) recommendations to improve the quality of reporting of observational studies. The STROBE Statement consists of a checklist of 22 items, which relate to the title, abstract, introduction, methods, results and discussion sections of articles. Eighteen items are common to cohort studies, case-control studies and cross-sectional studies and four are specific to each of the three study designs. The STROBE Statement provides guidance to authors about how to improve the reporting of observational studies and facilitates critical appraisal and interpretation of studies by reviewers, journal editors and readers. This explanatory and elaboration document is intended to enhance the use, understanding, and dissemination of the STROBE Statement. The meaning and rationale for each checklist item are presented. For each item, one or several published examples and, where possible, references to relevant empirical studies and methodological literature are provided. Examples of useful flow diagrams are also included. The STROBE Statement, this document, and the associated Web site (http://www.strobe-statement.org/) should be helpful resources to improve reporting of observational research.