Under Reporting of Abuse of Older Adults in the Canadian Prairie Provinces

This tri-provincial mixed methods study explores the reasons for under reporting abuse of older adults in the Prairie Provinces of Canada. Abuse of community-residing older adults, and specifically the reasons for not reporting such abuse, is poorly understood. This paper discusses the findings of the qualitative arm of the study that collected data through interviews with older adults having histories of abuse, their family members and service providers from related sectors. Content analysis was employed to identify three key themes: (1) recognizing and naming abuse; (2) barriers to disclosure; and (3) facilitators of reporting. Recommendations are made to improve awareness, education, and service provision in prevention and treatment of the abuse of community-residing older adults.

Biomarkers for Prognosis in Pancreatic Neuroendocrine Tumors

Pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors (PNETs) encompass a diverse group of malignancies marked by histological heterogeneity and highly variable clinical outcomes. We performed a systematic review on potential prognostic biomarkers in PNETs by searching the PubMed database. A total of 472 manuscripts were reviewed in detail and 52 multivariate studies met the inclusion criteria proposed by the Reporting Recommendations for Tumor Marker Prognostic Studies (REMARK). These altogether analyzed 53 unique targets and 36 of them were statistically associated with survival.

How Should Educational Effects Be Communicated to Teachers?

Research findings regarding the effects of educational interventions—typically reported in units of standard deviations (e.g., Cohen’s d)—are often translated into more intuitive metrics before being communicated to teachers. However, there is no consensus about the most suitable metric, and no study has systematically examined how teachers respond to the different options. We conducted two preregistered studies addressing this issue. We found that teachers have strong preferences concerning effect size metrics in terms of informativeness, understandability, and helpfulness. These preferences challenge current research reporting recommendations. Most importantly, we found that different metrics induce different perceptions of an intervention’s effectiveness—a situation that could cause teachers to have unrealistic expectations about what a given intervention may achieve. Implications for how educational effects should be communicated are discussed.

Better reporting of science to improve regulatory decision-making

The Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC) introduces recommendations for reporting ecotoxicity studies. The purpose of this is to facilitate the use of these studies in research as well as regulatory assessments. Compliance with these reporting recommendations will depend on individual researchers as well as scientific journals’ willingness to adopt and promote them.

Minimum Reporting Recommendations for PCR-based Telomere Length Measurement

In September 2019, NIA and NIEHS launched the Telomere Research Network (TRN) (trn.tulane.edu) to establish best practices for the measurement of telomere length in population-based studies. As a first step, this working document was drafted to reflect the current recommendations of the TRN. These recommendations are offered as initial guidelines for researchers, reviewers, and scientific research officers, and are considered minimal reporting guidelines for PCR-based measurement of telomere length. Over the next five years, the TRN expects to better define these parameters and integrate comments from our colleagues and experts around the world. To make comments and/or request clarification please contact Stacy Drury, M.D., PhD, Director of the TRN at [email protected].

PRISMA 2020 explanation and elaboration: updated guidance and exemplars for reporting systematic reviews

The methods and results of systematic reviews should be reported in sufficient detail to allow users to assess the trustworthiness and applicability of the review findings. The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) statement was developed to facilitate transparent and complete reporting of systematic reviews and has been updated (to PRISMA 2020) to reflect recent advances in systematic review methodology and terminology. Here, we present the explanation and elaboration paper for PRISMA 2020, where we explain why reporting of each item is recommended, present bullet points that detail the reporting recommendations, and present exemplars from published reviews. We hope that changes to the content and structure of PRISMA 2020 will facilitate uptake of the guideline and lead to more transparent, complete and accurate reporting of systematic reviews.

Compliance With Standards for STARD 2015 Reporting Recommendations in Pathology

Objectives Lack of experimental reproducibility has led to growing interest in guidelines to enhance completeness and transparency in research reporting. This retrospective survey sought to determine compliance with Standards for Reporting of Diagnostic Accuracy Studies (STARD) 2015 statement in the recent pathology scientific literature. Methods Two raters independently scored 171 pathology diagnostic accuracy studies for compliance with 34 STARD items and subcomponents. Overall adherence was calculated as a proportion after excluding nonapplicable items. Results After excluding nonapplicable items, there was 50% overall adherence to STARD reporting recommendations. In total, 15.44 ± 3.59 items were reported per article (range, 4-28 out of maximum possible of 34). There was substantial heterogeneity in individual item reporting, with greater than 75% reporting in eight of 34 items and less than 25% reporting in 11 of 34 items. Less than 10% of articles reported hypotheses, subgroup analyses for confounding, sample size calculations, subject flow diagrams, study registrations, and links to full study protocols. Significantly more items were reported in articles from journals that endorsed STARD (16.14 vs 14.84, P = .0175). Conclusions These findings demonstrate incomplete reporting of essential items in pathology diagnostic accuracy studies. More vigorous enforcement of reporting checklists might improve adherence to minimum reporting standards.