Objective To introduce the method of reading systematic reviews. Methods Papers and books on reading and evaluating medical literature were searched comprehensively, and general principles and approaches of reading systematic reviews were summarized. Results The following 10 points were summarized to help read systematic reviews in a scientific, rapid, and efficient way: ① Was there any overviews of reviews? ② Was there a recent update? ③ Were the previous relevant systematic reviews integrated? ④ Were sound searching strategies established and implemented? ⑤ Was quality evaluation done concerning the original research? ⑥ Were the results of the original research conflated properly? ⑦ Was there any explanation to the limitations or weaknesses of the systematic review? ⑧ Were the problems to be solved in the next stage put forward? ⑨ Were the abstracts and full-texts reported sufficiently? ⑩ Were the systematic reviews helpful in solving practical problems? Additionally, the readers were divided into the four groups based on their application of the systematic reviews: health policy makers, health care suppliers, researchers as well as patients and common people. Conclusion The reading of the systematic reviews should be stressed in order to better guide decision-making and promote evidence-based practice.
【Abstract】ObjectiveTo review the epidemiology, etiology, pathology, clinical presentation, diagnosis and treatment, recurrance and prognosis of Mondor disease. MethodsLiteratures on Mondor disease were reviewed, and our study of Mondor disease was also included. ResultsMondor disease is difficult to diagnose, but is with good prognosis in most patients. It’s unclear whether Mondor disease is associated with the etiology of breast cancer. ConclusionThe diagnosis and therapy of Mondor disease are important, especially when it is accompanied with breast cancer.
Systematic reviews can provide important evidence support for clinical practice and health decision-making. In this process, literature screening and data extraction are extensively time-consuming procedures. Natural language processing (NLP), as one of the research directions of computer science and artificial intelligence, can accelerate the process of literature screening and data extraction in systematic reviews. This paper introduced the requirements of systematic reviews for rapid literature screening and data extraction, the development of NLP and types of machine learning; and systematically collated the NLP tools for the title and abstract screening, full-text screening and data extraction in systematic reviews; and discussed the problems in the application of NLP tools in the field of systematic reviews and proposed a prospect for its future development.
Objective To explore the characteristics of articles related to Evidence-based Nursing (EBN) and to identify the problems and difficulties encountered by clinical nurses when they were engaged in evidence-based practice in China.Methods We searched for articles published in 6 nursing journals in China from 2000 to early 2006, and classified, investigated and analyzed the retrieved articles. Results Research on EBN has been changing from explaining theories and methods to applying research results in nursing practice. Among articles on clinical application, 90.9% did not describe the methods and search strategy used; 63.6% did not specify the sources of the evidence applied in practice; 93.9% did not describe the methodological quality of the evidence; only 6.1% used the results of systematic reviews or randomized trials to guide clinical practice; and 72.7% did not use effective evaluation methods to identify the nursing outcomes after applying evidences in clinical practice. Conclusions The quality of EBN related articles needs to improve further. Nurses should learn more about the knowledge and skills associated with EBN so as to improve the quality of nursing practice and of academic articles on EBN
ObjectivesTo evaluate the level and variation of Chinese scholars' scientific research capability in the world by analysing the status of literature published on top-five global biomedicine journals by Chinese scholars in the past 10 years.MethodsLiterature published on NEJM, JAMA, BMJ, Lancet and PLoS Medicine from 2007 to 2016 were searched in PubMed database. Types of diseases were classified by using International Classification of Diseases (version 10) (ICD-10). Quantitatively analysis were used to classify the different authors, institutes, studies designs, quality of publication and variation.ResultsLiterature (56.4%) published on Lancet had the largest quantity among the top-five journals. Infectious and parasitic diseases, circulation system diseases, cancers, endocrine, nutrition and metabolic diseases and neuropsychiatric diseases were the top-five in disease categories list, accounting for 38.4%. In different study design, reviews (non-experimental research) and randomized controlled trials were the first and the second study types, separately.ConclusionsFor productivity of Chinese scholars’ diseases publications on top-five medical journals, the top-five specific diseases are from the top-five disease categories-infectious and parasitic diseases, circulation system diseases, cancer, endocrine, nutrition and metabolic diseases and neuropsychiatric diseases. The main study types are reviews, randomized controlled trials and cross-sectional studies.
Objective To provide evidence for the definition, current development and prospect of Evidence-based pharmacy through systematically assessing the extant literatures. Methods We searched CBM, VIP, CNKI, PubMed, EMbase, and Google for supplement. We extracted definitions of evidence-based pharmacy, types of studies, published year, topics of studies, and the author information from the included studies. We compared the definitions on different domains, and assessed the current development of evidence-based pharmacy literature. Results a) The definition of evidence-based pharmacy: We found 4 definitions, and there were great differences among them on the people who practiced evidence-based pharmacy as well as the methods and areas of the practice. b) The evidence-based pharmacy literature: 12 English and 202 Chinese articles were included in the review. The number of Chinese evidence-based pharmacy articles was increasing annually, especially in recent 3 years; Most of their authors were from hospitals, especially from pharmacy department; Their study orientations mostly involved clinical pharmacy and hospital pharmacy; The topics mainly refered to the practice and development of clinical pharmacy, rational drug use, and development of hospital pharmacy. Conclusion a) There is yet no consensus on the definition of evidence-based pharmacy. b) Few researchers worldwide know or show interest in evidence-based pharmacy, while, so far, more and more researchers are getting to know evidence-based pharmacy in China. c) Further efforts should be made to develop the theoretical system of evidence-based pharmacy and the pattern of its practice.
Objective To study the methodology of Chinese literature retrieval. Methods The manual review of the literature was served as the “gold standard” against database search strategies (the diagnostic tests). We selected original articles about treatment, rehabilitation and randomized controlled trials from 31 journals. The articles were downloaded from the Chinese Biomedical Database (CBM). We selected potentially useful words through a word frequency analysis and determined the frequency of all the words in the titles, abstracts, and subject indexes. All the selected journals functioned as a closed database. The sensitivity, specificity and precision of all the high frequency words were calculated and the high frequency words of large sensitivity×precision were considered as final searching words. All the searching strategies were produced by computer programe which consisted of all searching words, title field and abstract field. Meanwhile, the sensitivity, specificity, precision and NNR (number needed to read) were calculated. Among the strategies, those comprised of all searching words would be used in CBM disc database, those of title and abstract words in Chinese Web Databases. The best strategies were those of high sensitivity and high specificity. Results 2 570 articles were selected and 45 articles met the gold standard. The strategies emphasized sensitivity were “therapeutic use OR random OR control(for CBM disc) and multicenter OR therapeutic outcome OR random (for Chinese online databases)”. The strategies emphasized specificity were “placebo OR prospective study(MH) OR double blind OR random controled trial (MH) (for CBM disc) and placebo OR prospective) OR double blind OR efficiency (for Chinese online databases).”Conclusions The method is optimal for Chinese literature databases
Objective To discover the similarities and differences between CBM and MEDLINE databases in the field of post-earthquake health issue research characteristics in order to provide references and aids to the scientific research administration, professional education and training, research subjects selection and project finance support. Methods CBM and MEDLINE databases (from January 1987 to December 2009) were systematically searched to obtain literature about post-earthquake health issues. Those studies were classified and compared by the characteristics of research objects, health issues, research periods, and types of study design. Results A total of 701 literature from CBM and 387 from MEDLINE were included. MEDLINE database provided more studies focusing on victims of natural calamities with specific age description than CBM (Plt;0.05). Research peak of CBM database centralized in the period of three months after earthquake (n=645, 92%), while MEDLINE was three years after the earthquake (n=191, 87.2%). Studies from both databases similarly focused on physical trauma and psychiatric/psychological issues (two types of health issues in total: CBM: n=727, 86.1%; MEDLINE: n=358, 83.4%). Investigations from CBM were primarily designed for retrospective and descriptive research (n=439, 62.6%), cross-sectional investigations (n=146, 20.8%) and case report (n=86, 12.3%) while MEDLINE focalized on cross-sectional investigations (n=177, 45.7%) and retrospective and descriptive research (n=146, 37.7%). Conclusion Compared to MEDLINE, studies from CBM database are relatively weak in the post-earthquake health issues of population with specific age characters, long-term health issues, levels of evidence and types of research design. The possible reasons are insufficient attention to the post-earthquake health issues, inadequate preparation for the research or limited knowledge about research methods.
Objective To summarize the etiology and clinical features of Mounier-Kuhn syndrome (MKS) so as to enhance the acknowledgement of MKS. Methods Three cases of MKS were reported and the keywords with " Tracheobronchomegaly”, " Mounier-Kuhn syndrome” were analyzed through the mode of literature retrieval in CNKI, VIP and Pubmed databases. Results There were 214 cases around the world including 14 cases of MKS in China. With unknown etiology and non-specific clinical feature, MKS is characteristic with congenital absence of tracheal or bronchial elastic tissue. MKS is diagnosed with remarkably dilated trachea and bronchus through chest CT or bronchofibroscope, accompanied with genetic defects. The ratio of men to women is 8.5 to 1. There is no radical cure. Symptomatic treatment and surgical treatment when necessary could be available. Conclusions MKS is a rare progressive hereditary disease, irrelevant to smoking and sharing a similar cause with generalized elastolysis, which need pay much attention to the physical examination of skin or elastic tissue. The diagnosis of MKS should be based on not merely airway diameter but also the overall clinical, pathologic, and radiologic profile.
Objective To investigate and analyze the past and on-going pro-poor programs related to health equity, and the relevant policies, documents, interventions measures, etc. to improve the China prisoners’ accessibility and utilization of tuberculosis (TB) control services in TB control programs, then evaluate their impacts and influences to provide evidences and suggestions for the further work of TB prevention and treatment. Methods Retrieve published documents about TB prevention and treatment of transient population dating from 1998 to 2008 from MEDLINE, PubMed, CNKI, CBMdisc CDDB and VIP with computers. Simultaneously, a series of interviews was conducted after we got the agreement of the interview people by using non-probability statistics methods. Results A total of 23 documents were retrieved, and they were consonant with the criteria, among which 8 were published and 5 were policy documents. The study on the second document showed the measures that presently applied on TB patients among prisoners in China: find patients through surveys, inspect every prisons and patients going to visit doctors with symptoms; concerning differences between various groups of prisoners, the measure of “classify and instruction, enroll together and treat” was applied; carry out health education in the prisons and so on. After the implement of various measures, the knowledge awareness, discovery rate, accomplishment ratio, cure rate and so on were all improved. The results of the qualitative interviews showed: the TB patients and the doubts among prisoners could be well gotten together and isolated to receive DOTS; doctors were able to receive trainings on TB treatment and take appointment with certificate. Conclusion According to the results of qualitative interviews, the published and the secondary documents, it could be seen that DOTS are well implemented with remarkable effects.