bims-librar Biomed News
on Biomedical librarianship
Issue of 2023‒04‒23
twelve papers selected by
Thomas Krichel
Open Library Society


  1. Learn Health Syst. 2023 Apr;7(2): e10339
      Introduction: Enterprise data warehouses (EDWs) serve as foundational infrastructure in a modern learning health system, housing clinical and other system-wide data and making it available for research, strategic, and quality improvement purposes. Building on a longstanding partnership between Northwestern University's Galter Health Sciences Library and the Northwestern Medicine Enterprise Data Warehouse (NMEDW), an end-to-end clinical research data management (cRDM) program was created to enhance clinical data workforce capacity and further expand related library-based services for the campus.Methods: The training program covers topics such as clinical database architecture, clinical coding standards, and translation of research questions into queries for proper data extraction. Here we describe this program, including partners and motivations, technical and social components, integration of FAIR principles into clinical data research workflows, and the long-term implications for this work to serve as a blueprint of best practice workflows for clinical research to support library and EDW partnerships at other institutions.
    Results: This training program has enhanced the partnership between our institution's health sciences library and clinical data warehouse to provide support services for researchers, resulting in more efficient training workflows. Through instruction on best practices for preserving and sharing outputs, researchers are given the tools to improve the reproducibility and reusability of their work, which has positive effects for the researchers as well as for the university. All training resources have been made publicly available so that those who support this critical need at other institutions can build on our efforts.
    Conclusions: Library-based partnerships to support training and consultation offer an important vehicle for clinical data science capacity building in learning health systems. The cRDM program launched by Galter Library and the NMEDW is an example of this type of partnership and builds on a strong foundation of past collaboration, expanding the scope of clinical data support services and training on campus.
    Keywords:  clinical data warehouse; data science; learning health system; medical informatics; research data management; workforce development
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1002/lrh2.10339
  2. Database (Oxford). 2023 Apr 20. pii: baad023. [Epub ahead of print]2023
      Scientific literature is published at a rate that makes manual data extraction a highly time-consuming task. The Comprehensive Antibiotic Resistance Database (CARD) utilizes literature to curate information on antimicrobial resistance genes and to enable time-efficient triage of publications we have developed a classification algorithm for identifying publications describing first reports of new resistance genes. Trained on publications contained in the CARD, CARD*Shark downloads, processes and identifies publications recently added to PubMed that should be reviewed by biocurators. With CARD*Shark, we can minimize the monthly scope of articles a biocurator reviews from hundreds of articles to a few dozen, drastically improving the speed of curation while ensuring no relevant publications are overlooked. Database URL http://card.mcmaster.ca.
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1093/database/baad023
  3. BMJ Evid Based Med. 2023 Apr 19. pii: bmjebm-2022-112079. [Epub ahead of print]
    Cochrane Rapid Reviews Methods Group
      This paper is part of a series of methodological guidance from the Cochrane Rapid Reviews Methods Group. Rapid reviews (RR) use modified systematic review methods to accelerate the review process while maintaining systematic, transparent and reproducible methods. In this paper, we address considerations for RR searches. We cover the main areas relevant to the search process: preparation and planning, information sources and search methods, search strategy development, quality assurance, reporting, and record management. Two options exist for abbreviating the search process: (1) reducing time spent on conducting searches and (2) reducing the size of the search result. Because screening search results is usually more resource-intensive than conducting the search, we suggest investing time upfront in planning and optimising the search to save time by reducing the literature screening workload. To achieve this goal, RR teams should work with an information specialist. They should select a small number of relevant information sources (eg, databases) and use search methods that are highly likely to identify relevant literature for their topic. Database search strategies should aim to optimise both precision and sensitivity, and quality assurance measures (peer review and validation of search strategies) should be applied to minimise errors.
    Keywords:  Evidence-Based Practice; Information Science; Methods; Systematic Reviews as Topic
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjebm-2022-112079
  4. BJOG. 2023 Apr 19.
      BACKGROUND: Preterm prelabour rupture of the membranes (PPROM) complicates 3% of pregnancies and is associated with an increased risk of maternal and perinatal morbidity and mortality. In an attempt to better understand this diagnosis, patients routinely resort to the internet for medical information. The lack of governance online leaves patients at risk of relying on low-quality websites.OBJECTIVES: To assess systematically the accuracy, quality, readability and credibility of World Wide Web pages on PPROM.
    SEARCH STRATEGY: Five search engines (Google, AOL, Yahoo, Ask and Bing) were searched with location services and browser history disabled. Websites from the first page of all searches were included.
    SELECTION CRITERIA: Websites were included if they provided at least 300 words of health information aimed at patients relating to PPROM.
    DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS: Validated assessments of health information readability, credibility and quality were undertaken, as was an accuracy assessment. Pertinent facts for accuracy assessment were based on feedback from healthcare professionals and patients through a survey. Characteristics were tabulated.
    MAIN RESULTS: In all, 39 websites were included, with 31 different texts. No pages were written with a reading age of 11 years or less, none were considered credible, and only three were high quality. An accuracy score of 50% or more was obtained by 45% of websites. Information that patients considered pertinent was not consistently reported.
    CONCLUSIONS: Search engines produce information on PPROM that is low quality, low accuracy and not credible. It is also difficult to read. This risks disempowerment. Healthcare professionals and researchers must consider how to ensure patients have access to information that they can recognise as high quality.
    Keywords:  patient information; preterm birth; preterm prelabour rupture of membranes; systematic review
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1111/1471-0528.17498
  5. J Psychoactive Drugs. 2023 Apr 20. 1-9
      There is a surge of interest in psychedelics, including new stakeholders and greater media attention. There is a need to examine the information-seeking behavior of people using psychedelics naturalistically, given the importance of preparation and harm-reduction. We examined sources of information for people using psychedelics naturalistically, and the degree to which they are trusted in a large, anonymous, online survey (N = 1221). The most common source of participants' information on psychedelics was their own experimentation and experiences (79.52%). Most also sought information from Internet websites (61.67%), friends (61.02%), Internet discussion forums (57.08%), books (57%), and articles in peer-reviewed scientific journals (54.55%). Few sought information from their primary health care provider (4.83%). Articles published in scientific journals, psychedelic nonprofits, and researchers based in colleges or universities were the most trusted sources of psychedelic information. Government agencies and pharmaceutical companies were the least trusted. Few participants thought that the popular media accurately stated the benefits and risks of psychedelics and most thought that the popular media failed to distinguish between different types of psychedelics. Our results indicate a high level of information seeking among psychedelic users, with a diverse array of information sources typically outside of mainstream health and medical care systems.
    Keywords:  LSD; Psychedelics; information; media; psilocybin; trust
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1080/02791072.2023.2201263
  6. BMC Oral Health. 2023 Apr 20. 23(1): 232
      BACKGROUND: In the era of the internet, patients seek health information ahead of getting the required treatment. Dental implant, which is among the most sought dental treatments, is not an exception. Incorrect health related information may lead to harmful deeds, so this study sought to assess the quality of web-based Arabic health information on dental implants.METHODS: The following engines were searched: Google ( http://www.google.com ), Yahoo! ( http://www.yahoo.com ), and Bing ( http://www.bing.com ) on 13 January 2022 for specific Arabic terms on "dental implants". The first 100 consecutive websites from each engine were analyzed for eligibility. The eligible websites were assessed using JAMA benchmarks tool, DISCERN tool, and HONcode. An online tool (including FKGL, SMOG and FRE) was used to assess readability of the websites.
    RESULTS: There were 65 eligible websites, of which only one (1.5%) was HONcode certified. Only 3 (4.5%) websites attained a high score (> 65 out of 80) based on DISCERN tool: The mean DISCERN score was 41.14 ± 12.64. The mean JAMA score was 1.69 ± 1.13; however, only five (7.6%) met all JAMA criteria. The main shortcomings were attributed to not meeting the "Attribution" (54 [83.1%]) and "Authorship" (43 [66.2%]) criteria. The mean grade level of FKGL score was 7.0 ± 4.5. The majority of the websites (60%) scored less than 7, indicating easy content to understand. The mean grade level of SMOG score required to understand a website's text was 3.2 ± 0.6. Around 91% of the websites had reading ease scores ≥ 80, suggesting that the website's content was easy to read.
    CONCLUSION: Unfortunately, although readable, most of the easily accessible web-based Arabic health information on dental implants does not meet the recognized quality standards.
    Keywords:  Dental implant; Health information; Infodemiology; Internet-based information; Quality Assessment; Readability
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1186/s12903-023-02938-8
  7. Medicine (Baltimore). 2023 Apr 21. 102(16): e33529
      Increasing digitization also raises concerns regarding the reliability and comprehensibility of online health information. In this study, we aimed to examine the readability, reliability, and quality of internet-based patient education materials on "transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation." On September 15, 2022, we used Google search engine to search the keyword "Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation" and obtained information from 200 websites. The readability of the websites was evaluated using the Flesch Reading Ease Score (FRES), Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level, Simple Measure of Gobbledygook, and Gunning Fog. The Journal of American Medical Association score and Health on the Net Foundation code of conduct were used to determine the reliability of the websites, whereas the DISCERN score and Global Quality Score were used to evaluate the quality of the websites. In the readability analysis of 102 websites that met the inclusion criteria of this study, we found that the Flesch Reading Ease Score was 47.91 ± 13.79 (difficult), average Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level and Simple Measure of Gobbledygook were 11.20 ± 2.85 and 10.53 ± 2.11 years, respectively, and average Gunning Fog score was 14.04 ± 2.74 (very difficult). Commercial websites constituted the highest proportion of websites (n = 36, 35.5%). Overall, 16.7% of the websites were found to be of high quality according to the Global Quality Score, 16 (15.7%) websites had Health on the Net Foundation code of conduct certification, and 8.8% of the websites were found to be highly reliable according to the Journal of American Medical Association scores. There was a statistically significant difference between website typologies and quality and reliability scores (P < .001). Compared with the sixth-grade level recommended by the American Medical Association and the National Institute of Health, the readability of transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation-related internet-based patient education materials was considerably high, but they showed low reliability and moderate-to-poor quality. Thus, the quality, reliability, and readability of websites developed by health professionals play a major role in conveying accurate and easily understandable information.
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1097/MD.0000000000033529
  8. Sisli Etfal Hastan Tip Bul. 2023 ;57(1): 130-135
      Objectives: The aim of the study was to clarify the reliability and quality of English videos about Coronary artery bypass grafting on YouTubeTM.Methods: The study was performed between July 16 and July 30. A cardiovascular surgeon searched for terms including "coronary artery disease," "coronary artery treatment," "coronary artery bypass" and "coronary artery bypass surgery," in YouTubeTM. All videos were classified into two groups according to the source who uploaded the video as professional videos and non-professional videos. Video characteristics including duration of video on YouTube™, length of video, and view numbers for each video were recorded. Moreover, the numbers of "comments," "likes," and "dislikes" were noted. Furthermore, the target audience of the videos (professional health care worker and patients) was analyzed, DISCERN score and Global quality score (GQS) were calculated for each video.
    Results: Totally, 812 videos were divided into two groups according to upload sources; 448 videos were categorized as professional videos and 364 videos were categorized as non-professional videos. The mean number of views was 3220.5 for professional videos and 2216.5 for non-professional videos (p=0.001). In addition, the mean "like" numbers and mean comment numbers were significantly higher for professional videos (p=0.001 and p=0.001). The mean DISCERN score was 2.6 for professional videos and 1.5 for non-professional videos (p=0.001). Similarly, the mean GSQ was significantly higher for professional videos (3.5 vs. 2.5, p=0.001).
    Conclusion: YouTube™ videos which are shared by professional healthcare workers have better quality and reliability with significantly higher DISCERN score and GQS.
    Keywords:  Coronary artery bypass; DISCERN score; English videos; GQS score; YouTubeTM
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.14744/SEMB.2022.59908
  9. J Neurosurg Pediatr. 2023 Apr 21. 1-9
      OBJECTIVE: Studies that evaluate YouTube videos on hydrocephalus often exclude non-English-language videos, even though hydrocephalus is more prevalent in low- and middle-income countries where English may not be widely understood. This study had two aims: to analyze the engagement, content, and quality of YouTube videos on hydrocephalus in the Filipino language, and to determine whether the videos' content matched the information needs of caregivers of children with hydrocephalus in the Philippines.METHODS: The authors conducted an online survey among caregivers of patients with hydrocephalus, recruited through the Facebook page of the Hydrocephalus Foundation of the Philippines Inc. Data on demographics, social media use, and language and content preferences were collected. In parallel, the authors systematically evaluated the engagement and content of three groups of YouTube videos on hydrocephalus: 1) most viewed Filipino-language videos, 2) most viewed English-language videos, and 3) same-age English-language videos, matched to the first group based on upload date. The quality of the Filipino-language videos was assessed using the DISCERN criteria.
    RESULTS: Among 280 respondents, 91% watched videos on hydrocephalus online and 89% preferred videos in Filipino. Compared with same-age English videos, Filipino videos had greater engagement, indicated by a higher median number of likes (40 vs 8, p = 0.005) and comments (8.5 vs 1, p = 0.007). English and Filipino videos emphasized similar topics on hydrocephalus, but the latter were more likely to discuss treatment cost and to solicit donations. Caregivers were most interested in the long-term care of patients with hydrocephalus, discussed only in 10 of 72 videos (14%) overall. The mean DISCERN score for Filipino videos was 30.1 ± 7.7, indicating poor quality.
    CONCLUSIONS: There is a gap between the information needs of Filipino caregivers and the content of YouTube videos on hydrocephalus. Neurosurgeons can serve as creators, resource persons, or curators of content, ensuring that up-to-date, accurate, and credible health information on hydrocephalus is available to caregivers in their preferred language.
    Keywords:  caregivers; pediatric hydrocephalus; science communication; social media
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.3171/2023.3.PEDS2333
  10. Phys Occup Ther Pediatr. 2023 Apr 17. 1-15
      AIMS: Information about Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is available in different videos on YouTube. However, these videos might present inaccurate or outdated information. The aims of this study were to 1) identify characteristics of Brazilian-Portuguese videos about ASD (i.e., type of content, number of views, likes, and dislikes); 2) analyze the content of informative videos about ASD, by assessing their trustworthiness and overall quality; and 3) investigate the most popular topics of informative videos about ASD over time.METHODS: This is a cross-sectional study that investigated Brazilian-Portuguese ASD content on YouTube. Videos were selected by two examiners and categorized as experiential or informative. The Discern checklist and the Global Quality Score (GQS) were used to analyze the trustworthiness and quality of informative videos.
    RESULTS: In total, 216 videos were analyzed, of which 19.5% and 85% were classified as experiential and informative, respectively. The majority of informative videos presented moderate trustworthiness and quality. Videos about ASD clinical aspects were the most popular.
    CONCLUSION: YouTube offers a large number of experiential and informative videos on ASD. However, some of these videos fail to present reliable and additional sources of information for stakeholders. Efforts to promote knowledge translation about ASD on YouTube are necessary.
    Keywords:  Autism spectrum disorder; knowledge translation; quality; trustworthiness; youtube
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1080/01942638.2023.2199843
  11. Cureus. 2023 Mar;15(3): e36299
      INTRODUCTION: YouTube is an open-source platform where creators can record and upload videos for others to see. As the popularity of YouTube increases, it is being increasingly used for healthcare-related information. However, with the relative ease of uploading videos, the content quality of individual videos is not regulated. This study aimed to assess and analyze the content quality of YouTube videos concerning meniscus tear rehabilitation. We hypothesized that most videos would be of low quality.METHODS: The keywords "meniscus tear treatment," "meniscus tear recovery," "meniscus tear physical therapy," and "meniscus tear rehabilitation" were used for searching videos on YouTube. A total of 50 videos was analyzed in this study that related to meniscal rehabilitation, grouped into one of four categories: non-physician professionals (physical therapists and chiropractors) (n=28), physicians (with or without academic affiliation) (n=5), non-academic healthcare-related websites (n=10), and non-professional individuals (n=7). Videos were then assessed by two independent authors using three scoring systems, which included the Global Quality Scale (GQS), modified DISCERN, and Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) scores. The number of likes, comments, video length, and views were collected for each video. Kruskal-Wallis tests were used to compare quality scores and video analytics.
    RESULTS: The overall median GQS, modified DISCERN, and JAMA scores were 3 (interquartile range (IQR): 2-3), 2 (IQR: 2-2), and 2 (IQR: 2-2), respectively. Sorted by GQS scores, 20 videos were of low quality (40%), 21 were intermediate (42%), and nine were of high quality (18%). Non-physician professionals produced 56% (28 of 50) of the videos assessed, with physical therapists constituting 86% (24 of 28) of this category. The median duration of each video was 6:54 (IQR: 3:59-10:50) minutes, views was 42,262 (IQR: 12,373-306,491), and likes was 877 (IQR: 239-4,850). Kruskal-Wallis testing showed a significant difference between JAMA scores, likes, and video length duration between video categories (p<0.028).
    CONCLUSION: The overall median reliability of YouTube videos on meniscus tear rehabilitation measured by JAMA and modified DISCERN scores was low. The overall median video quality, as assessed by GQS scores, was intermediate. Video quality was highly variable, with fewer than 20% meeting high-quality standards. As a result, patients are often viewing lower quality videos when researching their condition online.
    Keywords:  meniscus; meniscus tear; online; physical therapy rehabilitation; rehab; youtube
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.7759/cureus.36299