bims-librar Biomed News
on Biomedical librarianship
Issue of 2022–11–27
eleven papers selected by
Thomas Krichel, Open Library Society



  1. Journal of academic librarianship. 2021 Jul;47(4): 102363
      The outbreak of COVID-19 poses new challenges to information literacy education. Facing the worldwide pandemic, academic libraries in various countries are still exploring how to cope with the situation. Little research has been carried out on how academic libraries should systematically promote information literacy education during the pandemic. This study uses 42 academic libraries at the top universities in China as cases for content analysis, focusing on information literacy education via online mini-courses, lectures, and other online teaching methods. The study has found that information literacy education during the pandemic has several characteristics, such as rapid response to information needs, recommending reliable information resources to users, developing and gathering current information on COVID-19 cases, and resisting misinformation and false information. Although libraries act quickly to meet users' needs in this new situation, they are still confronted with some problems, such as insufficient planning, untimely updates, incomplete resources, etc. This study suggests that libraries adopt the following approaches to the development of information literacy education under the new norm of the pandemic: boosting online courses with multi-platform linkage; developing innovative teaching models with online and offline combination; exploring teaching opportunities and expanding teaching content according to new information needs; fighting misinformation.
    Keywords:  Academic library; COVID-19; Information literacy; Pandemic; Social media
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.acalib.2021.102363
  2. J Cancer Educ. 2022 Nov 22.
      The benefits of cancer information-seeking may be particularly salient to individuals impacted by childhood cancer, including patients, caregivers, health professionals, and advocates. The purpose of this study was to explore information-seeking patterns for childhood cancer through the National Cancer Institute's Cancer Information Service (CIS), a multi-channel, bilingual resource for cancer information. The study team conducted descriptive analyses on secondary data characterizing 1820 caregivers, health professionals, organizations, and members of the general public who contacted the CIS about childhood cancer between September 2018 and June 2022. Almost 80% of inquiries about childhood cancer were initiated by caregivers, followed by the public, health professionals, and organizations. Although English was the primary language used by individuals to reach the CIS when discussing childhood cancer, there were variations in points of access (i.e., telephone, instant messaging, email, social media) across the four user groups. Most childhood cancer inquiries were about staging and treatment, and the primary cancer sites discussed by CIS users were neurologic or brain, hematologic, and musculoskeletal cancers. Discussion topics included managing and coping with cancer, clinical trials, and treatment side effects. Just over half (54%) of CIS contacts about childhood cancer resulted in a health professional referral. Findings provide direction for the CIS and other public health organizations to deliver, prioritize, and tailor their services to support the information needs of childhood cancer survivors and their families-as well as those who care and advocate for them-who may have a significant need for credible cancer information.
    Keywords:  Caregivers; Childhood cancer; Information seeking behavior
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1007/s13187-022-02237-w
  3. JMIR Med Inform. 2022 Nov 16.
       BACKGROUND: Under the paradigm of Precision Medicine (PM), patients with the same disease can receive different personalized therapies according to their clinical and genetic features. These therapies are determined by the totality of all available clinical evidence, including results from case reports, clinical trials, and systematic reviews. However, it is increasingly difficult for physicians to find such evidence from scientific publications, whose size is growing at an unprecedented pace.
    OBJECTIVE: In this work, we propose the PM-Search system to facilitate the retrieval of clinical literature that contains critical evidence for or against giving specific therapies to certain cancer patients.
    METHODS: The PM-Search system combines a Baseline Retriever that selects document candidates at a large scale and an Evidence Re-ranker that finely reorders the candidates based on their evidence quality. The Baseline Retriever uses query expansion and keyword matching with the Elasticsearch retrieval engine, and the Evidence Re-ranker fits pre-trained language models to expert annotations that are derived from an active learning strategy.
    RESULTS: The PM-Search system achieves the best performance in the retrieval of high-quality clinical evidence at the TREC PM Track 2020, outperforming the second-ranking systems by large margins (0.4780 vs. 0.4238 for standard NDCG@30 and 0.4519 vs. 0.4193 for exponential NDCG@30).
    CONCLUSIONS: We present PM-Search, a state-of-the-art search engine to assist the practicing of evidence-based PM. PM-Search uses a novel BioBERT-based active learning strategy that models evidence quality and improves the model performance. Our analyses show that evidence quality is a distinct aspect from general relevance, and specific modeling of evidence quality beyond general relevance is required for a PM search engine.
    CLINICALTRIAL:
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.2196/40743
  4. Cureus. 2022 Oct;14(10): e30497
      Background Vitiligo is a common skin condition worldwide. It is an autoimmune disorder characterized by losing functional melanocytes, leading to chronic patchy depigmentation. People use the internet to seek health information, which is becoming one of the most commonly utilized sources. In this study, we aim to evaluate online information seen by patients about vitiligo by assessing the quality, content, and readability of widely used medical websites. Methodology All searches were conducted on February 16, 2022. The most popular search engines, Google, Yahoo, and Bing, were used to find websites, using vitiligo written in Arabic as a search term. An online readability calculator tool was used for the readability assessment of all websites. Two board-certified dermatology consultants (AK and LA) formulated a scoring sheet containing 19 questions based on commonly asked questions by patients in the dermatology clinics; 10 out of the 19 questions were designed to cover general information about vitiligo. In contrast, the other nine questions were designed to accommodate the management aspect of vitiligo. For the accountability assessment of each website, Journal of American Medical Association (JAMA) benchmarks were used. Statistical analysis has been performed using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) version 25 (IBM SPSS Statistics, Armonk, NY, USA). Main measures The following measures were used: a 19-question sheet, JAMA benchmarks, the Coleman-Liau index, and the Automated Readability Index (ARI). Results In this study, we analyzed 21 websites. The interobserver reproducibility was 0.946 between AK and LA (P < 0.001). For all websites, the mean (standard deviation (SD)) score of the questionnaire was 11.71 (3.45) (95% confidence interval (CI): 10.14-13.29) out of 19 possible points. Regarding all four JAMA benchmarks, no website achieved all benchmarks. Three of 21 websites (14.29%) completed three out of four JAMA benchmarks. No correlation was found between the content quality of the websites and JAMA benchmarks (r = 0.270, P = 0.237). Conclusion Online information about vitiligo in Arabic varies depending on the source, but overall, it is of low quality and written beyond the level of the general population. The "top 10 websites" outlined in our article may be used as a suggested reading list for vitiligo patients.
    Keywords:  arabic; patient information; quality; readability; vitiligo
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.7759/cureus.30497
  5. World J Urol. 2022 Nov 22.
       PURPOSE: Benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) affects nearly half of men in their fifties. Patients often search the Internet to better understand their diagnosis, but online health information is not well regulated and can be difficult for patients to comprehend. This study aims to evaluate not only readability, but also the quality of online information about BPH, as well as the effect of commercial bias on readability and quality.
    METHODS: Three search engines (Google, Bing, and DuckDuckGo) were used with broad search terms including "BPH," "BPH treatment," and "BPH surgery," to mimic a patient diagnosed with BPH seeking further information. 204 total websites were identified, of which 62 were unique websites. Among those unique websites, 23 were advertisements. Three readability formulas (Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level, Flesch-Kincaid Reading Ease, SMOG) were used to generate readability scores. DISCERN standardized questionnaire was used to evaluate website quality.
    RESULTS: Average reading level of online information about BPH was significantly higher than the recommended level by the American Medical Association (AMA) and United States Department of Health and Human Services (USDHHS). Advertisements had significantly easier readability than nonadvertisements. Average website quality was "excellent" for nonadvertisements, but only "fair" for advertisements.
    CONCLUSION: Although advertisements may hold optimal search result positions and have better readability than nonadvertisements, they have biased and lower quality information. It is important to guide patients to high quality online information of appropriate reading level. Continued efforts should be made to create and share with patients high quality resources with improved readability to facilitate comprehension and minimize misinformation.
    Keywords:  Benign prostatic hyperplasia; Internet; Online information; Quality; Readability
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1007/s00345-022-04223-9
  6. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2022 Nov 17. pii: 15177. [Epub ahead of print]19(22):
      This study aimed to evaluate the reliability, overall quality, and educational value of online videos for learning the techniques related to shoulder injection treatments and analyzing the usability of video evaluation tools for musculoskeletal injections. Online video searches were performed in February 2022 using the terms "shoulder injection", "glenohumeral joint injection", "acromioclavicular joint injection", and "subacromial bursa injection." Included videos were scored by modified DISCERN (mDISCERN), global quality score (GQS), and shoulder injection score (SIS). Correlations between scoring systems were analyzed. Of the 150 videos, 49 (32.67%) contained highly reliable information. Regarding the assessment of overall quality by the GQS, 109 (72.67%) videos were of low quality. Regarding SIS, 114 (76.00%) scored not &gt;5, of which 77 (51.33%) scored &lt;3. Most of the SIS domains were fully explained in &lt;40% of the included videos. A weak positive relationship was noted between the mDISCERN and SIS (r2 = 0.38), while a moderately positive relationship was observed between the GQS and SIS (r2 = 0.49). The majority of online videos about shoulder injection treatment showed low reliability, overall quality, and educational value. Additionally, a new scoring system is required to accurately evaluate musculoskeletal injection videos for educational purposes.
    Keywords:  education; health personnel; injections; shoulder; social media
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph192215177
  7. Front Public Health. 2022 ;10 1000338
       Introduction: Anal fissure is a common colorectal disease impacting patients' life quality with high incidence. Social media platforms are becoming a kind of health information source nowadays. This study aims to evaluate and compare the quality of anal fissure-related videos on TikTok and YouTube.
    Materials and methods: One hundred videos were sourced from TikTok and YouTube, respectively and videos were screened further. The completeness of six types of content within the videos is assessed, including the definition of disease, symptoms, risk factors, evaluation, management and outcomes. Finally, the DISCERN instrument, Patient Education Materials Assessment Tool and Global Quality scale are used to assess video display quality and content. A correlation analysis is undertaken considering the video features, DISCERN, PEMAT and GQS scores.
    Results: Physicians and non-profit organizations contributed almost all video content among selected videos. A statistically significant correlation between DISCERN classification and duration, PEMAT understandability, PEMAT actionability and GQS scores is recorded. DISCERN total scores were significantly positively correlated with video duration, PEMAT understandability, PEMAT actionability and GQS scores. GQS scores were significantly positively correlated with duration, PEMAT understandability and PEMAT actionability scores. For content, the videos mainly described management and symptoms while containing limited information on the disease evaluation, and outcomes.
    Conclusions: The sources of uploaders on YouTube are more diverse than TikTok, and the quality of videos is also relatively higher on YouTube. Even so, the video quality of the two platforms still needs to be further improved. Health information without integrity, reliability and practicability impacts patients' disease perception and health-seeking behavior, leading to serious consequences. Much effort must be taken to improve the quality of videos regarding anal fissures on the two platforms, which will facilitate the development of public health education on this issue.
    Keywords:  TikTok; YouTube; anal fissure; internet; quality
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2022.1000338
  8. Tremor Other Hyperkinet Mov (N Y). 2022 ;12 32
       Background: YouTube has evolved into an important educational tool and information source for patients and their families. YouTube videos have the potential to influence the patients' health-related diagnosis and treatment decision-making. We aimed to evaluate the quality and usefulness of videos on essential tremor available on YouTube using quantitative instruments.
    Methods: Video searches were performed by typing the keywords 'essential tremor', 'postural tremor', 'action tremor', 'essential tremor hand', and 'essential tremor head' into the YouTube search bar. The top 30 videos were reviewed for each search term. The videos were analyzed by two independent raters using the DISCERN and Global Quality Scale (GQS) scoring systems. Qualitative and quantitative data were recorded for each video.
    Results: A total of 83 videos were analyzed. The mean DISCERN score was 41.96 out of 75 possible points, and the mean GQS score was 2.97 out of 5 possible points. Twelve percent of the videos were categorized as very poor, 38.6% as poor, 20.5% as fair, 19.3% as good, and 9.6% as excellent. The videos containing qualitative content features, such as clear information, symptoms, etiology, diagnosis, treatment, treatment response, epidemiology, diagrams, and radiological images had significantly higher DISCERN and GQS scores.
    Discussion: We consider that reliable and useful content is not provided on YouTube for individuals searching for information on essential tremor. We listed the best-quality videos on this topic as a reference for healthcare practitioners and patients. Patients should always verify information provided in such videos through more reliable sources.
    Keywords:  DISCERN; Essential tremor; YouTube; information; quality
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.5334/tohm.727
  9. Database (Oxford). 2022 Nov 25. pii: baac103. [Epub ahead of print]2022
      The Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has shifted the focus of research worldwide, and more than 10 000 new articles per month have concentrated on COVID-19-related topics. Considering this rapidly growing literature, the efficient and precise extraction of the main topics of COVID-19-relevant articles is of great importance. The manual curation of this information for biomedical literature is labor-intensive and time-consuming, and as such the procedure is insufficient and difficult to maintain. In response to these complications, the BioCreative VII community has proposed a challenging task, LitCovid Track, calling for a global effort to automatically extract semantic topics for COVID-19 literature. This article describes our work on the BioCreative VII LitCovid Track. We proposed the LitCovid Ensemble Learning (LCEL) method for the tasks and integrated multiple biomedical pretrained models to address the COVID-19 multi-label classification problem. Specifically, seven different transformer-based pretrained models were ensembled for the initialization and fine-tuning processes independently. To enhance the representation abilities of the deep neural models, diverse additional biomedical knowledge was utilized to facilitate the fruitfulness of the semantic expressions. Simple yet effective data augmentation was also leveraged to address the learning deficiency during the training phase. In addition, given the imbalanced label distribution of the challenging task, a novel asymmetric loss function was applied to the LCEL model, which explicitly adjusted the negative-positive importance by assigning different exponential decay factors and helped the model focus on the positive samples. After the training phase, an ensemble bagging strategy was adopted to merge the outputs from each model for final predictions. The experimental results show the effectiveness of our proposed approach, as LCEL obtains the state-of-the-art performance on the LitCovid dataset. Database URL: https://github.com/JHnlp/LCEL.
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1093/database/baac103
  10. Semin Vasc Surg. 2022 Dec;pii: S0895-7967(22)00063-1. [Epub ahead of print]35(4): 464-469
      In this article, we compare and contrast methods of reviewing, summarizing, and synthesizing the literature, including systematic reviews, scoping reviews, and narrative reviews. Review articles are essential to help investigators wade through the plethora of exponentially growing medical literature. In the era of evidence-based medicine, a systematic approach is required. A systematic review is a formalized method to address a specific clinical question by analyzing the breadth of published literature while minimizing bias. Systematic reviews are designed to answer narrow clinical questions in the PICO (population, intervention, comparison, and outcome) format. Alternatively, scoping reviews use a similar systematic approach to a literature search in order to determine the breadth and depth of knowledge on a topic; to clarify definitions, concepts, and themes; or sometimes as a precursor to a systematic review or hypothesis generator to guide future research. However, scoping reviews are less constrained by a priori decisions about which interventions, controls, and outcomes may be of interest. Traditional narrative reviews still have a role in informing practice and guiding research, particularly when there is a paucity of high-quality evidence on a topic.
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1053/j.semvascsurg.2022.09.001