Sargeant J M, O'Connor A M, Cullen J N, Makielski K M, Jones-Bitton A
Centre for Public Health and Zoonoses, University of Guelph, Guelph, ON, Canada.
Department of Population Medicine, Ontario Veterinary College, University of Guelph, Guelph, ON, Canada.
J Vet Intern Med. 2017 Jul;31(4):1035-1042. doi: 10.1111/jvim.14741. Epub 2017 May 24.
Study design labels are used to identify relevant literature to address specific clinical and research questions and to aid in evaluating the evidentiary value of research. Evidence from the human healthcare literature indicates that the label "case series" may be used inconsistently and inappropriately.
Our primary objective was to determine the proportion of studies in the canine and feline veterinary literature labeled as case series that actually corresponded to descriptive cohort studies, population-based cohort studies, or other study designs. Our secondary objective was to identify the proportion of case series in which potentially inappropriate inferential statements were made.
Descriptive evaluation of published literature.
One-hundred published studies (from 19 journals) labeled as case series.
Studies were identified by a structured literature search, with random selection of 100 studies from the relevant citations. Two reviewers independently characterized each study, with disagreements resolved by consensus.
Of the 100 studies, 16 were case series. The remaining studies were descriptive cohort studies (35), population-based cohort studies (36), or other observational or experimental study designs (13). Almost half (48.8%) of the case series or descriptive cohort studies, with no control group and no formal statistical analysis, included inferential statements about the efficacy of treatment or statistical significance of potential risk factors.
Authors, peer-reviewers, and editors should carefully consider the design elements of a study to accurately identify and label the study design. Doing so will facilitate an understanding of the evidentiary value of the results.
研究设计标签用于识别相关文献，以解决特定的临床和研究问题，并有助于评估研究的证据价值。来自人类医疗文献的证据表明，“病例系列”这一标签的使用可能不一致且不恰当。
我们的主要目的是确定犬猫兽医文献中标记为病例系列的研究中，实际对应描述性队列研究、基于人群的队列研究或其他研究设计的比例。我们的次要目的是确定做出潜在不恰当推断性陈述的病例系列的比例。
对已发表文献的描述性评估。
100篇标记为病例系列的已发表研究（来自19种期刊）。
通过结构化文献检索确定研究，从相关引用中随机选择100项研究。两名评审员独立对每项研究进行特征描述，分歧通过协商解决。
在100项研究中，16项为病例系列。其余研究为描述性队列研究（35项）、基于人群的队列研究（36项）或其他观察性或实验性研究设计（13项）。几乎一半（48.8%）没有对照组且未进行正式统计分析的病例系列或描述性队列研究包含了关于治疗效果或潜在风险因素统计学意义的推断性陈述。
作者、同行评审员和编辑应仔细考虑研究的设计要素，以准确识别和标记研究设计。这样做将有助于理解结果的证据价值。
