School of Medicine and Public Health, University of Newcastle, Callaghan, NSW, 2308, Australia; Hunter New England Population Health, Hunter New England Local Health District, Wallsend, NSW, 2287, Australia.
Centre for Statistics in Medicine, Rehabilitation Research in Oxford, Nuffield Department of Orthopaedics Rheumatology and Musculoskeletal Sciences, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK.
J Clin Epidemiol. 2023 Mar;155:39-47. doi: 10.1016/j.jclinepi.2023.01.005. Epub 2023 Feb 1.
We assessed authors' language and methods to determine alignment between reported aims, methods, intent, and interpretations in observational studies in spinal pain or osteoarthritis.
We searched five databases for observational studies that included people with spinal pain or osteoarthritis published in the last 5 years. We randomized 100 eligible studies, and classified study intent (aims and methods) and interpretations as causal, non-causal, unclear, or misaligned.
Overall, 38% of studies were aligned regarding their intent and interpretation (either causally (22%) or non-causally (16%)). 29% of studies' aims and 29% of study methods were unclear. Intent was misaligned in 16% of studies (where aim differed to method) and 23% of studies had misaligned interpretations (where there were multiple conflicting claims). The most common kind of aim was non-causal (38%), and the most common type of method (39%), intent (38%), and interpretations (35%) was causal.
Misalignment and mixed messages are common in observational research of spinal pain and osteoarthritis. More than 6 in 10 observational studies may be uninterpretable, because study intent and interpretations do not align. While causal methods and intent are most common in observational research, authors commonly shroud causal intent in non-causal terminology.
我们评估了作者的语言和方法，以确定在过去 5 年内发表的关于脊柱疼痛或骨关节炎的观察性研究中报告的目的、方法、意图和解释之间的一致性。
我们在五个数据库中搜索了纳入有脊柱疼痛或骨关节炎的人群的观察性研究，共随机抽取了 100 项符合条件的研究，并将研究意图（目的和方法）和解释分为因果关系、非因果关系、不明确或不一致。
总体而言，38%的研究在其意图和解释方面是一致的（要么是因果关系（22%），要么是非因果关系（16%））。29%的研究目的和 29%的研究方法不明确。16%的研究意图不一致（目的与方法不同），23%的研究解释不一致（存在多个相互矛盾的说法）。最常见的研究目的是非因果关系（38%），最常见的研究方法（39%）、意图（38%）和解释（35%）是因果关系。
在脊柱疼痛和骨关节炎的观察性研究中，不一致和信息混淆很常见。超过 10 分之 6 的观察性研究可能无法解释，因为研究意图和解释不一致。虽然因果关系的方法和意图在观察性研究中最为常见，但作者通常用非因果关系的术语来掩盖因果关系的意图。
