Department of Anaesthesiology, Intensive Care and Pain Management, University Medical Centre Maribor, Maribor, Slovenia.
Department of Anaesthesiology and Pain Medicine, Inselspital, Bern University Hospital, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland.
PLoS One. 2020 Nov 5;15(11):e0241826. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0241826. eCollection 2020.
BACKGROUND: A debate about the scientific quality of COVID-19 themed research has emerged. We explored whether the quality of evidence of COVID-19 publications is lower when compared to nonCOVID-19 publications in the three highest ranked scientific medical journals. METHODS: We searched the PubMed Database from March 12 to April 12, 2020 and identified 559 publications in the New England Journal of Medicine, the Journal of the American Medical Association, and The Lancet which were divided into COVID-19 (cases, n = 204) and nonCOVID-19 (controls, n = 355) associated content. After exclusion of secondary, unauthored, response letters and non-matching article types, 155 COVID-19 publications (including 13 original articles) and 130 nonCOVID-19 publications (including 52 original articles) were included in the comparative analysis. The hierarchical level of evidence was determined for each publication included and compared between cases and controls as the main outcome. A quantitative scoring of quality was carried out for the subgroup of original articles. The numbers of authors and citation rates were also compared between groups. RESULTS: The 130 nonCOVID-19 publications were associated with higher levels of evidence on the level of evidence pyramid, with a strong association measure (Cramer's V: 0.452, P <0.001). The 155 COVID-19 publications were 186-fold more likely to be of lower evidence (95% confidence interval [CI] for odds ratio, 7.0-47; P <0.001). The quantitative quality score (maximum possible score, 28) was significantly different in favor of nonCOVID-19 (mean difference, 11.1; 95% CI, 8.5-13.7; P <0.001). There was a significant difference in the early citation rate of the original articles that favored the COVID-19 original articles (median [interquartile range], 45 [30-244] vs. 2 [1-4] citations; P <0.001). CONCLUSIONS: We conclude that the quality of COVID-19 publications in the three highest ranked scientific medical journals is below the quality average of these journals. These findings need to be verified at a later stage of the pandemic.
背景：关于 COVID-19 主题研究的科学质量的争论已经出现。我们探讨了在三大顶级科学医学期刊中，与非 COVID-19 出版物相比，COVID-19 出版物的证据质量是否更低。
方法：我们于 2020 年 3 月 12 日至 4 月 12 日在 PubMed 数据库中进行了检索，并确定了《新英格兰医学杂志》、《美国医学会杂志》和《柳叶刀》中与 COVID-19（病例，n=204）和非 COVID-19（对照，n=355）相关的 559 篇出版物。排除次要的、未经授权的回复信和不匹配的文章类型后，纳入了 155 篇 COVID-19 出版物（包括 13 篇原始文章）和 130 篇非 COVID-19 出版物（包括 52 篇原始文章）进行比较分析。确定纳入的每篇出版物的证据层次，并作为主要结果在病例和对照之间进行比较。对原始文章的亚组进行了质量的定量评分。还比较了两组之间的作者数量和引用率。
结果：130 篇非 COVID-19 出版物与证据金字塔上更高水平的证据相关，关联度量值较高（Cramer's V：0.452，P<0.001）。155 篇 COVID-19 出版物发生较低证据的可能性高 186 倍（比值比的 95%置信区间为 7.0-47；P<0.001）。定量质量评分（最大可能评分 28）明显偏向非 COVID-19（平均值差异 11.1；95%置信区间 8.5-13.7；P<0.001）。原始文章的早期引用率存在显著差异，COVID-19 原始文章的引用率较高（中位数[四分位数范围]，45 [30-244]比 2 [1-4]；P<0.001）。
结论：我们的结论是，三大顶级科学医学期刊中的 COVID-19 出版物的质量低于这些期刊的平均质量。这些发现需要在大流行的后期阶段进行验证。
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