University of Virginia School of Law, Charlottesville, USA.
North Carolina State University, 101 Lampe Drive (Withers Hall 453), Raleigh, NC, 27695, USA.
BMC Med Ethics. 2022 Mar 13;23(1):25. doi: 10.1186/s12910-022-00760-5.
Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) is an FDA approved treatment for major depression, migraine, obsessive compulsive disorder, and smoking addiction. TMS has gained popular media support, but media coverage and commercial reporting of TMS services may be contributing to the landscape of ethical issues.
We explore the differences between the academic and print media literature portrayals of TMS to evaluate their ethical impact for the public. We performed a comprehensive literature review using PubMed and NexisUni databases to evaluate the literature available on TMS from 2014 to 2019. Our sample consisted of 1632 academic articles and 468 print media articles for a total of 2100 articles. We then coded each article for seven specific top-level codes: (1) type of source, (2) year of publication, (3) purpose of TMS application, (4) age of subjects, (5) population, (6) overall tone, and (7) specification of TMS parameters. We also made some additional notes of the TMS parameters where specified and the breakdown of mental health applications.
Our results indicated several discrepancies between the academic and the print media reporting about TMS technology, particularly with regards to tone and specificity. Namely, the academic sample was largely neutral and specific about the parameters under which TMS was being applied, while the print media sample was heavily optimistic and presented the application of TMS with far less specificity. There was some convergence between the two samples, such as the focus of both on therapy as the predominant TMS application.
We call upon the academic community to increase scrutiny of TMS services in order to ensure that people's knowledge of health technologies is not unduly influenced by sensational claims and a general lack of adequate information.
经颅磁刺激（TMS）是一种获得 FDA 批准的治疗重度抑郁症、偏头痛、强迫症和吸烟成瘾的方法。TMS 得到了大众媒体的支持，但 TMS 服务的媒体报道和商业报道可能正在引发一系列伦理问题。
我们探讨了学术和印刷媒体文献对 TMS 的描述之间的差异，以评估它们对公众的伦理影响。我们使用 PubMed 和 NexisUni 数据库进行了全面的文献回顾，评估了 2014 年至 2019 年 TMS 的文献。我们的样本包括 1632 篇学术文章和 468 篇印刷媒体文章，共计 2100 篇文章。然后，我们为每个文章编码了七个特定的顶级代码：（1）来源类型，（2）出版年份，（3）TMS 应用的目的，（4）受试者的年龄，（5）人群，（6）总体语气，以及（7）TMS 参数的说明。我们还对指定的 TMS 参数和心理健康应用的细分做了一些额外的注释。
我们的结果表明，TMS 技术的学术报告和印刷媒体报告之间存在一些差异，特别是在语气和具体性方面。具体来说，学术样本在很大程度上对 TMS 应用的参数持中立和具体的态度，而印刷媒体样本则非常乐观，并对 TMS 的应用表现出较少的具体性。这两个样本之间存在一些趋同，例如两者都侧重于 TMS 作为主要治疗应用。
我们呼吁学术界加强对 TMS 服务的审查，以确保人们对健康技术的了解不会受到夸大的主张和普遍缺乏足够信息的不当影响。
