1,721,003 research outputs found

    Does randomised evidence alter clinical practise? The react qualitative study

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    Background: In 2015, the results of the ‘Small bites versus large bites for closure of abdominal midline incisions (STITCH) Trial’ were published in The Lancet. This demonstrated the superiority of small bite laparotomy closure over mass closure for the reduction of incisional hernias; despite this most surgeons have not changed their practice. Previous research has shown the time taken for the implementation of evidenced based practise within medicine takes an average of 17 years. This study aims to understand the reasons why surgeons have and have not changed their practice with regards to closure of midline laparotomy. Methods: Semi-structured interviews were completed with surgical consultants and registrars at a single institution in South West England. The interview topic guide was informed by a review of the published literature, which identified barriers to adopting evidence into surgical practice. Interview transcripts underwent thematic analysis with themes identified following discussions within the research team, exploring views on published data and clinical practise. Results: Nine interviews with general surgical and urological consultants as well as registrars in training were performed. Three themes were identified; ‘Trusting the Evidence & Critical Appraisal’, ‘Surgical Attitude to Risk’ and ‘Adopting Evidence in Practise’, that reflected barriers to the introduction of evidenced based practise to clinical work. Conclusion: Identification of the themes highlights possible areas for intervention to decrease the adoption time for evidence, for example from randomised controlled trials. The continued updating of clinical practise allows clinicians to provide best evidenced based care for patients and improve their outcomes

    Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis

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    The present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed

    REACT Study: do RandomisEd trials Alter Clinical pracTise? A Qualitative Study

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    Background The STITCH trial published high quality randomised data demonstrating the superiority of small bite over mass closure for the reduction of incisional hernias following elective laparotomy. Previous research has shown time taken for the implementation of evidenced based practise is, on average, 17 years. We aim to understand barriers to implementation of small bite closure into clinical practise. Methods Semi-structured interviews were completed with surgeons at a single institution in South West England. Interview transcripts underwent thematic analysis with themes identified following coding and subsequent iterative discussions within the research team. Results Nine interviews of eight general surgical consultants and registrars and one urological consultant were performed. Average duration of the interviews was 22:49 minutes (14:20-36.37). Three themes were identified as barriers to the introduction of small bite closure. ‘Trusting the Evidence & Critical Appraisal’ highlighted issues with the published trial and access to data. ‘Surgical Attitude to Risk’ identified differences in personality traits and the importance of guidelines from professional bodies to support practise change. ‘Adopting Evidence in Practise’ discussed training availability, system and patient issues within local hospitals. Conclusion Surgeons have to manage the balance between pushing boundaries to improve outcomes and a safety first approach. This influences the adoption of new techniques, such as small bite closure. This study has identified three themes that result in differences in the adoption of a new technique for midline closure. There are possible areas for intervention, to decrease the adoption time for randomised evidence

    Variations on the Author

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    “Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship

    Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis

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    We provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis

    Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts

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    We conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more sophisticated methods

    Author Index

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    koamabayili/VECTRON-author-checklist: VECTRON author checklist

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    We have done our best to complete the author checklist relating to the use of animals in the hut study. Note that the objective for the hut study was to evaluate the IRS treatment applications for residual efficacy against Anopheles mosquitoes, including the local An. coluzzii mosquito population. Cows were only used to attract mosquitoes into the huts and no tests were carried out directly on the cows. The author checklist is intended for use with studies where experiments are carried out on animals, which is why we have had such difficulty in completing this for the hut study, as many of the questions do not relate to how the cows were used
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