Institute for Musculoskeletal Health, The University of Sydney and Sydney Local Health District, Sydney, Australia.
School of Public Health, Faculty of Medicine and Health, The University of Sydney, Missenden Road, Camperdown, PO Box M179, Sydney, NSWNew South Wales, 2050, Australia.
BMC Med Educ. 2022 Apr 27;22(1):326. doi: 10.1186/s12909-022-03404-9.
Infographics have become an increasingly popular method to present research findings and increase the attention research receives. As many scientific journals now use infographics to boost the visibility and uptake of the research they publish, infographics have become an important tool for medical education. It is unknown whether such infographics convey the key characteristics that are needed to make useful interpretations of the data such as an adequate description of the study population, interventions, comparators and outcomes; methodological limitations; and numerical estimates of benefits and harms. This study described whether infographics published in peer-reviewed health and medical research journals contain key characteristics that are needed to make useful interpretations of clinical research.
In this cross-sectional study, we identified peer-reviewed journals listed in the top quintile of 35 unique fields of medicine and health research listed in the Journal Citation Reports database. Two researchers screened journals for the presence of infographics. We defined an infographic as a graphical visual representation of research findings. We extracted data from a sample of two of the most recent infographics from each journal. Outcomes were the proportion of infographics that reported key characteristics such as study population, interventions, comparators and outcomes, benefits, harms, effect estimates with measures of precision, between-group differences and conflicts of interest; acknowledged risk of bias, certainty of evidence and study limitations; and based their conclusions on the study's primary outcome.
We included 129 infographics from 69 journals. Most infographics described the population (81%), intervention (96%), comparator (91%) and outcomes (94%), but fewer contained enough information on the population (26%), intervention (45%), comparator (20%) and outcomes (55%) for those components of the study to be understood without referring to the main paper. Risk of bias was acknowledged in only 2% of infographics, and none of the 69 studies that had declared a conflict of interest disclosed it in the infographics.
Most infographics do not report sufficient information to allow readers to interpret study findings, including the study characteristics, results, and sources of bias. Our results can inform initiatives to improve the quality of the information presented in infographics.
信息图已成为展示研究结果并提高研究关注度的一种越来越流行的方法。由于许多科学期刊现在使用信息图来提高他们发表的研究的可见度和接受度，因此信息图已成为医学教育的重要工具。目前尚不清楚这些信息图是否传达了做出有用解释所需的关键特征，例如对研究人群、干预措施、对照和结果的充分描述；方法学上的局限性；以及对利益和危害的数值估计。本研究描述了发表在同行评议的健康和医学研究期刊上的信息图是否包含做出有用的临床研究解释所需的关键特征。
在这项横断面研究中，我们确定了列入《期刊引证报告》数据库中 35 个医学和健康研究领域中排名前五分位的同行评议期刊。两名研究人员筛选了期刊中信息图的存在情况。我们将信息图定义为研究结果的图形视觉表示。我们从每个期刊中最近的两份信息图中提取数据。结果是报告关键特征（如研究人群、干预措施、对照和结果、利益、危害、具有精度测量的效应估计值、组间差异和利益冲突）的信息图比例；承认偏倚风险、证据确定性和研究局限性；并根据研究的主要结果得出结论。
我们纳入了 69 种期刊中的 129 个信息图。大多数信息图描述了人群（81%）、干预（96%）、对照（91%）和结果（94%），但只有 26%的信息图包含足够的人群信息，45%的信息图包含足够的干预信息，20%的信息图包含足够的对照信息，55%的信息图包含足够的结果信息，而无需参考主要论文。只有 2%的信息图承认偏倚风险，而在有利益冲突声明的 69 项研究中，没有一项在信息图中披露。
大多数信息图没有报告足够的信息，使读者无法解释研究结果，包括研究特征、结果和偏倚来源。我们的研究结果可以为改进信息图中呈现的信息质量的举措提供信息。
