ABSTRACT
This study reports the first assessment of published comments in the family medicine literature using structured codes, which produced commentary annotations that will be the foundation of a knowledge base of appraisals of family medicine trials. Evidence appraisal occurs in a variety of formats and serves to shed light on the quality of research. However, scientific discourse generally and evidence appraisal in particular has not itself been analyzed for insights. A search strategy was devised to identify all journal comments indexed in PubMed linked to controlled intervention studies published in a recent 15-year period in major family medicine journals. A previously developed structured representation in the form of a list of appraisal concepts was used to formally annotate and categorize the journal comments through an iterative process. Trends in family medicine evidence appraisal were then analyzed. A total of 93 comments on studies from five journals over 15 years were included in the analysis. Two thirds of extracted appraisals were negative criticisms. All appraisals of measurement instruments were negative (100%). The participants baseline characteristics, the author discussions, and the design of the interventions were also criticized (respectively 91.7%, 84.6% and 83.3% negative). In contrast, appraisals of the scientific basis of the studies were positive (81.8%). The categories with the most appraisals were, most generally, those focused on the study design, and most specifically, those focused on the scientific basis. This study provides a new data-driven approach to review scientific discourse regarding the strengths and limitations of research within academic family medicine. This methodology can potentially generalize to other medical domains. Structured appraisal data generated here will enable future clinical, scientific, and policy decision-making and broader meta-research in family medicine.
Subject(s)
Evidence-Based Medicine/organization & administration , Family Practice/organization & administration , Medical Informatics/statistics & numerical data , Medical Informatics/standards , Periodicals as Topic/statistics & numerical data , Periodicals as Topic/standards , Evidence-Based Medicine/statistics & numerical data , Family Practice/statistics & numerical data , Humans , Peer ReviewABSTRACT
YouTube is the second most visited website in the world. No studies to date have characterized and evaluated YouTube videos on colorectal cancer (CRC) although these videos could influence patient decision-making, notably regarding screening and prevention. This study aims to report the characteristics and quality of these videos as patient education resources for CRC. YouTube's search engine was queried with different search phrases relating to CRC. The first two pages of each search result were analyzed. Two specialists devised a critical appraisal tool with a list of criteria to assess the videos. Quantitative YouTube parameter analyses and criteria assessment were performed. Inter-rater agreement was assessed between three raters. A total of 46 videos were eligible to be included in the study. The videos were on average 4:51 ± 3:27 min long. The videos had 10 times as many likes as dislikes. Less than half the videos discussed risk factors and protective factors. Only 41% of videos mentioned screening tests and only about a quarter discussed them. Palliative care was only mentioned in 2% of videos. A single video could obtain a perfect score on the critical appraisal tool. Length was the unique parameter associated with a high score on the criteria list. There is thus a need for more authoritative and comprehensive videos easily identifiable by the patients. Video popularity is not associated with comprehensiveness. Currently, YouTube might not be an education resource for CRC suited to every patient.
