Ng Jeremy Y, Lin Brenda, Parikh Tisha, Cramer Holger, Moher David
Institute of General Practice and Interprofessional Care, University Hospital Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany.
Robert Bosch Center for Integrative Medicine and Health, Bosch Health Campus, Stuttgart, Germany.
PLoS One. 2024 May 3;19(5):e0302655. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0302655. eCollection 2024.
Open science practices are implemented across many scientific fields to improve transparency and reproducibility in research. Complementary, alternative, and integrative medicine (CAIM) is a growing field that may benefit from adoption of open science practices. The efficacy and safety of CAIM practices, a popular concern with the field, can be validated or refuted through transparent and reliable research. Investigating open science practices across CAIM journals by using the Transparency and Openness Promotion (TOP) guidelines can potentially promote open science practices across CAIM journals. The purpose of this study is to conduct an audit that compares and ranks open science practices adopted by CAIM journals against TOP guidelines laid out by the Center for Open Science (COS).
CAIM-specific journals with titles containing the words "complementary", "alternative" and/or "integrative" were included in this audit. Each of the eight TOP criteria were used to extract open science practices from each of the CAIM journals. Data was summarized by the TOP guideline and ranked using the TOP Factor to identify commonalities and differences in practices across the included journals.
A total of 19 CAIM journals were included in this audit. Across all journals, the mean TOP Factor was 2.95 with a median score of 2. The findings of this study reveal high variability among the open science practices required by journals in this field. Four journals (21%) had a final TOP score of 0, while the total scores of the remaining 15 (79%) ranged from 1 to 8.
While several studies have audited open science practices across discipline-specific journals, none have focused on CAIM journals. The results of this study indicate that CAIM journals provide minimal guidelines to encourage or require authors to adhere to open science practices and there is an opportunity to improve the use of open science practices in the field.
开放科学实践已在许多科学领域实施，以提高研究的透明度和可重复性。补充医学、替代医学和整合医学（CAIM）是一个不断发展的领域，可能会从采用开放科学实践中受益。CAIM实践的有效性和安全性是该领域普遍关注的问题，可以通过透明且可靠的研究来验证或反驳。通过使用透明度与开放性促进（TOP）指南来调查CAIM期刊中的开放科学实践，有可能在CAIM期刊中推广开放科学实践。本研究的目的是进行一项审核，将CAIM期刊采用的开放科学实践与开放科学中心（COS）制定的TOP指南进行比较并排名。
本次审核纳入了标题中包含“补充”“替代”和/或“整合”字样的CAIM专业期刊。使用八项TOP标准中的每一项，从每本CAIM期刊中提取开放科学实践。数据按TOP指南进行汇总，并使用TOP因子进行排名，以确定所纳入期刊在实践中的共性和差异。
本次审核共纳入了19本CAIM期刊。在所有期刊中，平均TOP因子为2.95，中位数分数为2。本研究结果显示，该领域期刊所要求的开放科学实践存在很大差异。四本期刊（21%）的最终TOP得分为0，而其余15本（79%）的总分在1至8分之间。
虽然有几项研究对特定学科期刊的开放科学实践进行了审核，但没有一项研究聚焦于CAIM期刊。本研究结果表明，CAIM期刊提供的鼓励或要求作者遵循开放科学实践的指南极少，该领域有机会改进开放科学实践的应用。
