Moscati R, Jehle D, Ellis D, Fiorello A, Landi M
Department of Emergency Medicine, SUNY at Buffalo School of Medicine, USA.
Acad Emerg Med. 1994 May-Jun;1(3):267-71. doi: 10.1111/j.1553-2712.1994.tb02443.x.
The existence of positive-outcome bias in the medical literature is well established. Positive-outcome bias in two emergency medicine journals was compared with that found in two general medicine journals.
Published original contributions from Annals of Emergency Medicine, American Journal of Emergency Medicine, JAMA, and New England Journal of Medicine were reviewed. Articles were categorized as demonstrating a positive or negative outcome or showing no difference using new criteria. Descriptive articles were excluded.
Of 700 articles reviewed, 177 emergency medicine and 211 general medicine articles met the study criteria. The emergency medicine journals had 142 articles (80%) with positive outcomes, 27 (15%) with negative outcomes, and 8 (5%) with no difference. The general medicine journals had 169 articles (80%) with positive outcomes, 33 (16%) with negative outcomes, and 9 (4%) with no difference. There was no significant difference between journal groups (chi-square; p = 0.99). The power of the study was 0.80 to detect a difference of 15% between groups with alpha set at 0.05.
There was no significant difference in the proportions of positive-outcome studies published in this sample of the emergency medicine literature compared with the general medicine literature. The potential impact of positive-outcome bias and methods of dealing with the problem are reviewed.
医学文献中阳性结果偏倚的存在已得到充分证实。比较了两种急诊医学期刊与两种普通医学期刊中的阳性结果偏倚情况。
对《急诊医学年鉴》《美国急诊医学杂志》《美国医学会杂志》和《新英格兰医学杂志》上发表的原创性论文进行了综述。根据新的标准，将文章分类为显示阳性或阴性结果或无差异。排除描述性文章。
在700篇被综述的文章中，177篇急诊医学文章和211篇普通医学文章符合研究标准。急诊医学期刊中有142篇文章（80%）有阳性结果，27篇（15%）有阴性结果，8篇（5%）无差异。普通医学期刊中有169篇文章（80%）有阳性结果，33篇（16%）有阴性结果，9篇（4%）无差异。期刊组之间无显著差异（卡方检验；p = 0.99）。该研究在α设定为0.05时检测组间15%差异的效能为0.80。
与普通医学文献相比，该样本的急诊医学文献中发表的阳性结果研究比例无显著差异。综述了阳性结果偏倚的潜在影响及处理该问题的方法。
