[Assessment of the quality of scientific evidence in Anales Españoles de Pediatría].

Evidence-based medicine is a new scientific paradigm that aims to use medical literature more effectively in guiding medical practice. The aim of this study was to assess the quality of scientific evidence in Spanish pediatric articles. Original articles published in Anales Españoles de Pediatría during a 6.5year period (n733) were compared with those published in Pediatrics during a 1.5year period (n300). The quality of scientific evidence in Anales was high in only 3% of original articles (randomized clinical trials). It was average in 30.4% (non-randomized clinical trials, cohort studies, case-control studies) and poor in 66.6% (descriptive studies, case reports, etc.). Only 10.2% of articles used appropriate methodological concepts according to evidence-based medicine. These concepts were mainly "soft" (odds ratio, relative risk, confidence interval) and no "hard" concepts (number needed to treat, likelihood ratio, odds pretest) were detected. The pediatric specialty showing the highest quality of scientific evidence, greatest use of appropriate methodological concepts and greatest statistical accessibility was pneumology. The first step in improving the quality of scientific evidence would be to establish collaboration between epidemiologists and/or biostatisticians. The evidence-based bibliometric indicators found in Pediatrics serve as a gold standard for Anales.