Physician characteristics associated with proper assessment of overstated conclusions in research abstracts: A secondary analysis of a randomized controlled trial

OBJECTIVES: Little is known about the physician characteristics associated with appraisal skills of research evidence, especially the assessment of the validity of study methodology. This study aims to explore physician characteristics associated with proper assessment of overstated conclusions in research abstracts. DESIGN: A secondary analysis of a randomized controlled trial. SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS: We recruited 567 volunteers from the Japan Primary Care Association. METHODS: Participants were randomly assigned to read the abstract of a research paper, with or without an overstatement, and to rate its validity. Our primary outcome was proper assessment of the validity of its conclusions. We investigated the association of physician characteristics and proper assessment using logistic regression models and evaluated the interaction between the associated characteristics and overstatement. RESULTS: We found significant associations between proper assessment and post-graduate year (odds ratio [OR] = 0.67, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.49 to 0.91, for every 10-year increase) and research experience as a primary investigator (PI; OR = 2.97, 95% CI 1.65 to 5.34). Post-graduate year and PI had significant interaction with overstatement (P = 0.015 and < 0.001, respectively). Among participants who read abstracts without an overstatement, post-graduate year was not associated with proper assessment (OR = 1.04, 95% CI 0.82 to 1.33), and PI experience was associated with lower scores of the validity (OR = 0.58, 95% CI 0.35 to 0.96). CONCLUSION: Physicians who have been in practice longer should be trained in distinguishing overstatements in abstract conclusions. Physicians with research experience might be informed that they tend to rate the validity of research lower regardless of the presence or absence of overstatements. TRIAL REGISTRATION: UMIN000026269.