Nieminen Pentti, Uribe Sergio E
Medical Informatics and Data Analysis Research Group, University of Oulu, 90014 Oulu, Finland.
Department of Conservative Dentistry and Oral Health, Riga Stradins University, LV-1007 Riga, Latvia.
Entropy (Basel). 2021 Apr 16;23(4):468. doi: 10.3390/e23040468.
Proper peer review and quality of published articles are often regarded as signs of reliable scientific journals. The aim of this study was to compare whether the quality of statistical reporting and data presentation differs among articles published in 'predatory dental journals' and in other dental journals. We evaluated 50 articles published in 'predatory open access (OA) journals' and 100 clinical trials published in legitimate dental journals between 2019 and 2020. The quality of statistical reporting and data presentation of each paper was assessed on a scale from 0 (poor) to 10 (high). The mean (SD) quality score of the statistical reporting and data presentation was 2.5 (1.4) for the predatory OA journals, 4.8 (1.8) for the legitimate OA journals, and 5.6 (1.8) for the more visible dental journals. The mean values differed significantly ( < 0.001). The quality of statistical reporting of clinical studies published in predatory journals was found to be lower than in open access and highly cited journals. This difference in quality is a wake-up call to consume study results critically. Poor statistical reporting indicates wider general lower quality in publications where the authors and journals are less likely to be critiqued by peer review.
恰当的同行评审和已发表文章的质量通常被视为可靠科学期刊的标志。本研究的目的是比较在“掠夺性牙科期刊”和其他牙科期刊上发表的文章中，统计报告和数据呈现的质量是否存在差异。我们评估了2019年至2020年间发表在“掠夺性开放获取（OA）期刊”上的50篇文章以及发表在正规牙科期刊上的100项临床试验。每篇论文的统计报告和数据呈现质量按照从0（差）到10（高）的等级进行评估。掠夺性OA期刊的统计报告和数据呈现的平均（标准差）质量得分是2.5（1.4），正规OA期刊是4.8（1.8），更知名的牙科期刊是5.6（1.8）。这些平均值存在显著差异（<0.001）。研究发现，在掠夺性期刊上发表的临床研究的统计报告质量低于开放获取期刊和高被引期刊。这种质量差异给人们敲响了警钟，要审慎对待研究结果。统计报告不佳表明在作者和期刊不太可能受到同行评审批评的出版物中，总体质量普遍较低。
