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The demise of the randomised controlled trial: bibliometric study of the German-language health care literature, 1948 to 2004

BACKGROUND: In order to reduce systematic errors (such as language bias) and increase the precision of the summary treatment effect estimate, a comprehensive identification of randomised controlled trials (RCT), irrespective of publication language, is crucial in systematic reviews and meta-analyses...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Galandi, Daniel, Schwarzer, Guido, Antes, Gerd
Formato: Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2006
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1533847/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16824217
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2288-6-30
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author Galandi, Daniel
Schwarzer, Guido
Antes, Gerd
author_facet Galandi, Daniel
Schwarzer, Guido
Antes, Gerd
author_sort Galandi, Daniel
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: In order to reduce systematic errors (such as language bias) and increase the precision of the summary treatment effect estimate, a comprehensive identification of randomised controlled trials (RCT), irrespective of publication language, is crucial in systematic reviews and meta-analyses. We identified trials in the German general health care literature. METHODS: Eight German language general health care journals were searched for randomised controlled trials and analysed with respect to the number of published RCTs each year and the size of trials. RESULTS: A total of 1618 trials were identified with a median total number of 43 patients per trial. Between 1970 and 2004 a small but constant rise in sample size from a median number of 30 to 60 patients per trial can be observed. The number of published trials was very low between 1948 and 1970, but increased between 1970 and 1986 to a maximum of 11.2 RCTs per journal and year. In the following time period a striking decline of the number of RCTs was observed. Between 1999 and 2001 only 0.8 RCTs per journal and year were published, in the next three years, the number of published trials increased to 1.7 RCTs per journal and year. CONCLUSION: German language general health care journals no longer have a role in the dissemination of trial results. The slight rise in the number of published RCTs in the last three years can be explained by a change of publication language from German to English of three of the analysed journals.
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spelling pubmed-15338472006-08-08 The demise of the randomised controlled trial: bibliometric study of the German-language health care literature, 1948 to 2004 Galandi, Daniel Schwarzer, Guido Antes, Gerd BMC Med Res Methodol Correspondence BACKGROUND: In order to reduce systematic errors (such as language bias) and increase the precision of the summary treatment effect estimate, a comprehensive identification of randomised controlled trials (RCT), irrespective of publication language, is crucial in systematic reviews and meta-analyses. We identified trials in the German general health care literature. METHODS: Eight German language general health care journals were searched for randomised controlled trials and analysed with respect to the number of published RCTs each year and the size of trials. RESULTS: A total of 1618 trials were identified with a median total number of 43 patients per trial. Between 1970 and 2004 a small but constant rise in sample size from a median number of 30 to 60 patients per trial can be observed. The number of published trials was very low between 1948 and 1970, but increased between 1970 and 1986 to a maximum of 11.2 RCTs per journal and year. In the following time period a striking decline of the number of RCTs was observed. Between 1999 and 2001 only 0.8 RCTs per journal and year were published, in the next three years, the number of published trials increased to 1.7 RCTs per journal and year. CONCLUSION: German language general health care journals no longer have a role in the dissemination of trial results. The slight rise in the number of published RCTs in the last three years can be explained by a change of publication language from German to English of three of the analysed journals. BioMed Central 2006-07-06 /pmc/articles/PMC1533847/ /pubmed/16824217 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2288-6-30 Text en Copyright © 2006 Galandi et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License ( (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0) ), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Correspondence
Galandi, Daniel
Schwarzer, Guido
Antes, Gerd
The demise of the randomised controlled trial: bibliometric study of the German-language health care literature, 1948 to 2004
title The demise of the randomised controlled trial: bibliometric study of the German-language health care literature, 1948 to 2004
title_full The demise of the randomised controlled trial: bibliometric study of the German-language health care literature, 1948 to 2004
title_fullStr The demise of the randomised controlled trial: bibliometric study of the German-language health care literature, 1948 to 2004
title_full_unstemmed The demise of the randomised controlled trial: bibliometric study of the German-language health care literature, 1948 to 2004
title_short The demise of the randomised controlled trial: bibliometric study of the German-language health care literature, 1948 to 2004
title_sort demise of the randomised controlled trial: bibliometric study of the german-language health care literature, 1948 to 2004
topic Correspondence
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1533847/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16824217
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2288-6-30
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