An Exploratory Analysis of Levels of Evidence for Articles Published in Indian Journal of Palliative Care in the years 2010-2011

CONTEXT: Indian Journal of Palliative Care (IJPC) provides a comprehensive multidisciplinary evidence base for an evidence-informed clinical decision making. AIMS: To analyze the levels of evidence of articles published in IJPC in the years 2010-2011. SETTINGS AND DESIGN: Systematic review of palliative care journals. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Systematic review of articles was done and was scored according to Center for Evidence-Based Medicine levels of evidence into any of the five grades. The articles were categorized based upon article type, number of authors, study approach, age focus, population focus, disease focus, goals of care, domains of care, models of care, and year of publication. STATISTICAL ANALYSIS USED: All descriptive analysis was done using frequencies and percentiles, and association between all categorical variables was done using Chi-square test at 95% confidence interval (CI) using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 16 for Windows (SPSS Inc, Chicago, IL). RESULTS: There was a greater prevalence of low level evidence (level 4: n = 46, 51%; level 5: n = 35, 39%) among the 90 selected articles, and article type (original articles with higher level of evidence, P = 0.000), article approach (analytical studies with higher level of evidence, P = 0.000), domains of palliative care (practice-related studies with higher level of evidence, P = 0.000) and models of care (biological or psychosocial model with higher level of evidence, P = 0.044) had a significant association with the grade of levels of evidence. Association with other factors was not statistically significant (P < 0.05). CONCLUSIONS: The levels of research evidence for palliative care provided by articles published in IJPC were predominantly level 4 and level 5, and there is scope for more high quality evidence to inform palliative care decisions in the developing countries.