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Reading Science Critically

Reading Science Critically. Debi A. LaPlante, PhD Associate Director, Division on Addictions. First Sources. Reading primary sources can be daunting Complexity of information Researchers are marketing their ideas and findings Time Benefits Current findings

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Reading Science Critically

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  1. Reading Science Critically Debi A. LaPlante, PhD Associate Director, Division on Addictions

  2. First Sources • Reading primary sources can be daunting • Complexity of information • Researchers are marketing their ideas and findings • Time • Benefits • Current findings • Promotes and enables replication • Data (often)

  3. What is the Purpose of Scientific Papers? • Concisely report information, ideas, and innovation • Build the common knowledge-base • Contribute to scientific debate • Resume building

  4. Why is important to read science critically? • Peer-review is state of the art, but imperfect • Author bias • Unintentional errors • Conflicts of interest • Author self-marketing

  5. More challenges to understanding and evaluating scientific literature • Writing by scientists, not writers • Marketing: Trojan Ns • Marketing: Assertive Sentence Titles • Statistical versus Clinical significance • Publication bias • Tough to publish negative results

  6. Finding Articles • Citation lists of published papers • Select journals’ table of contents • Specialized search engines (e.g., Medline; PsycInfo) • Web searches (e.g., Google Scholar) • Personal referrals • Citation indexes (e.g., Social Science Citation Index)

  7. Components of Scientific Papers • Abstract • Introduction • Hypotheses or research questions • Methods • Participants • Materials • Protocol • Results • Discussion • Interpretation of results • Advances • Limitations • Conclusion

  8. How to get through a paper • Strategy depends on expertise • General approach: • Don’t read straight through • Read title and abstract • Skim Intro • Read results • Track back to Methods • Read Discussion

  9. Resources • Literature summary services • www.basisonline.org • http://www.cesar.umd.edu/cesar/cesarfax.asp • Greenhalgh (1997) http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/315/7103/305 • Zaccai (2004) http://pmj.bmj.com/content/80/941/140.full.pdf

  10. Is the study original? • Does the research advance what we know? • Bigger, longer, more substantial? • More rigorous? • New population? • Will it inform or change clinical practice? Greenhalgh (1997)

  11. Whom is the study about? • What was the recruitment method? • Representative and generalizable? • Refusal rate? Homogeneity? Random? • What are the inclusion criteria? • Disorder severity • What are the exclusion criteria? • Co-existing illness, other medication, English, literate • How “true to life” is the study setting? Greenhalgh (1997)

  12. Is the design sensible? • What was done? • Appropriate comparison groups? • What was the measured outcome? • Is there a sufficient description of the design? Greenhalgh (1997)

  13. Ambiguous Research Methods Greenhalgh (1997)

  14. Is systematic bias avoided or minimized? • Designs • Randomized trials • Non-randomized trials • Cohort studies • Case studies • Methods • Blind assignment and assessment • Validated measurement tools • Control confounding (e.g., baseline group differences) Greenhalgh (1997)

  15. Autumn Season Falling Leaves Student arrival to campus Confounder of the Season-Falling Leaves relationship

  16. Are the results credible? • Is there a sufficient sample size? • Are the results clinical significant? • How long is follow up? • Is the follow-up appropriate to the outcome? (e.g., post-operative pain versus pediatric growth patterns) • What is retention rate? Greenhalgh (1997)

  17. Take Away Messages • First Source publications provide important benefits to science and practice • Unintentional and intentional errors occur • Readers should read critically and not merely take such publications at face value

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