All that glitters isn't gold: a survey on acknowledgment of limitations in biomedical studies.
<h4>Background</h4>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.<h4>Objectives</h4>To assess the extent to which limitations ar...
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oai:doaj.org-article:3da98e92d3c14b618ba22bb570f72a9d2021-11-18T08:45:21ZAll that glitters isn't gold: a survey on acknowledgment of limitations in biomedical studies.1932-620310.1371/journal.pone.0073623https://doaj.org/article/3da98e92d3c14b618ba22bb570f72a9d2013-01-01T00:00:00Zhttps://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/pmid/24324540/pdf/?tool=EBIhttps://doaj.org/toc/1932-6203<h4>Background</h4>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.<h4>Objectives</h4>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.<h4>Design</h4>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.<h4>Results</h4>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).<h4>Limitations</h4>Detection and classification of limitations was--to some extent--subjective. The weighting scheme used by the hedging detection software has subjective elements.<h4>Conclusions</h4>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.Gerben Ter RietPaula ChesleyAlan G GrossLara SiebelingPatrick MuggensturmNadine HellerMartin UmbehrDaniela VollenweiderTsung YuElie A AklLizzy BrewsterOlaf M DekkersIngrid MühlhauserBernd RichterSonal SinghSteven GoodmanMilo A PuhanPublic Library of Science (PLoS)articleMedicineRScienceQENPLoS ONE, Vol 8, Iss 11, p e73623 (2013) |
| institution |
DOAJ |
| collection |
DOAJ |
| language |
EN |
| topic |
Medicine R Science Q |
| spellingShingle |
Medicine R Science Q Gerben Ter Riet Paula Chesley Alan G Gross Lara Siebeling Patrick Muggensturm Nadine Heller Martin Umbehr Daniela Vollenweider Tsung Yu Elie A Akl Lizzy Brewster Olaf M Dekkers Ingrid Mühlhauser Bernd Richter Sonal Singh Steven Goodman Milo A Puhan All that glitters isn't gold: a survey on acknowledgment of limitations in biomedical studies. |
| description |
<h4>Background</h4>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.<h4>Objectives</h4>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.<h4>Design</h4>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.<h4>Results</h4>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).<h4>Limitations</h4>Detection and classification of limitations was--to some extent--subjective. The weighting scheme used by the hedging detection software has subjective elements.<h4>Conclusions</h4>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. |
| format |
article |
| author |
Gerben Ter Riet Paula Chesley Alan G Gross Lara Siebeling Patrick Muggensturm Nadine Heller Martin Umbehr Daniela Vollenweider Tsung Yu Elie A Akl Lizzy Brewster Olaf M Dekkers Ingrid Mühlhauser Bernd Richter Sonal Singh Steven Goodman Milo A Puhan |
| author_facet |
Gerben Ter Riet Paula Chesley Alan G Gross Lara Siebeling Patrick Muggensturm Nadine Heller Martin Umbehr Daniela Vollenweider Tsung Yu Elie A Akl Lizzy Brewster Olaf M Dekkers Ingrid Mühlhauser Bernd Richter Sonal Singh Steven Goodman Milo A Puhan |
| author_sort |
Gerben Ter Riet |
| title |
All that glitters isn't gold: a survey on acknowledgment of limitations in biomedical studies. |
| title_short |
All that glitters isn't gold: a survey on acknowledgment of limitations in biomedical studies. |
| title_full |
All that glitters isn't gold: a survey on acknowledgment of limitations in biomedical studies. |
| title_fullStr |
All that glitters isn't gold: a survey on acknowledgment of limitations in biomedical studies. |
| title_full_unstemmed |
All that glitters isn't gold: a survey on acknowledgment of limitations in biomedical studies. |
| title_sort |
all that glitters isn't gold: a survey on acknowledgment of limitations in biomedical studies. |
| publisher |
Public Library of Science (PLoS) |
| publishDate |
2013 |
| url |
https://doaj.org/article/3da98e92d3c14b618ba22bb570f72a9d |
| work_keys_str_mv |
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1718421316575428608 |