Tuesday, June 27, 2006

Journalology

Some recent articles of interest:

A study of the quality of evidence published in medical journals, using the number of RCTs and meta-analyses as the measure - published in the Postgraduate Medical Journal, with accompanying commentary. The commentary records the editors' debates over the publication of the article.

A study of the information sources that are important to surgeons, using a questionnaire. Peer reviewed journals were listed as the second most important source, with the BMJ and Annals of the Royal College of Surgeons of England being read across all sub-specialties. The paper appears in
BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making as a provisional PDF. Meetings and conferences, by the way, was the most important source.

PLoS Medicine has published an
editorial on open access and public health. It starts with a story told by Arthur Amman, president of Global Strategies for HIV Prevention, about a physician from Africa who altered their practice based on an abstract posted on the Internet. However, the full text of the article would have revealed the deficiencies of the study, and might have led the physician to different conclusions.

Finally, a
BMJ News piece says that search engines increase the use of academic journals more than open access.

I am off to read all these in full!

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