| Communication of Results on Risk Factors Studies: Confidence Intervals (2007) | |||||||||
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| Purpose: Starting from the hypothesis that confidence intervals are used in medical research as a criterion of trustworthiness and robustness of findings, the aim of the research was to determine whether the medical parameters communicated as results in abstracts of risk factors studies published in PubMed database and in Romania online journals are accompanied by confidence intervals. Method: The search strategy included four keywords and some limitations (publication data, the language of publication, and studies on human). Four inclusion criterions were imposed. The obtained results were summarized and analyzed with Statistica.Results: A number of 3191 were identified after applying the search strategy on PubMed database. Almost three and a half percent (n = 110) remained after inclusion the confidence intervals as keyword. Sixty articles out of one hundred and one accomplished the inclusion criteria. A number of sixty-five articles from nine Romanian online journals were identified. After applying the inclusion criterions, five articles out of sixty-five were included into the analysis. Testing the null hypothesis that there are not significant differences between the number of articles indexed in PubMed database and the number of articles published in Romanian online journals which refer as outcome the relative risk or odds ratio with associated confidence intervals, a p-value less than 0.0001 was obtained. Conclusion: It can be conclude that the publication standards in Romanian medical journals must by arise in order to become aligned with the international trends and standards. | |||||||||
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