BCO PAGE RE: Pain and Attitude

KayB Thanks for that link. Highly appreciated.

To All. The "Sad Face" article Daniel Engber Is a wealth of information that will be useful to us. It will take time to sort through.

Engber referred to a 2008 study where replication studies showed fewer than half got the same results i.e. 39:100. I referenced the Smithsonian article by Brian Handwerk that discussed that study, on page one of this thread.

Because each of these are articles about the studies, they don't have a standard bibliography as required of studies. These article types incorporate a hyperlink at a particular point in their articles that allows the reader to go to the original study.

For those new to research, this is an accepted standard approach. I'll explain the process, then give an opinion as to how this is useful to us.

When a study is published, it follows publication rules accepted by journals. There is a step by step method that a scientific study is done. It's referred to as the Scientific Method. Upon completion of a study, it is written in a format that is expected of all scientific publications. That allows for any reader to scrutinize the study details according to the scientific method.

Next step, is there are articles written by journalists that in many cases spend their careers writing articles about studies. They interpret the study into lay person language. The quality of this interpretation, can rank from awful to superlative.

A recent example of an awful article on a study, was when I was working on the Beta-Blocker thread. One person incorporated into her article a protocol for use, recommending the reader ask their physician to consider for use peri-operatively. I pretty quickly found out that a human study had not been initiated. I contacted the offending site and let them know that their employee had written a dangerous piece of information.

. I have already found a problem with the Engber article. It took a bit to locate the link to what I expected to be the published study. But the link goes to the web page that says "unedited manuscript". So, even though Engber's article is nicely put together, it now falls into the suspect category b/c it's not actually the final document in the journal. He may have been sent an advance publication copy from Wagenmaker. Engber states " The results came out on Aug. 18th". It might be in this journals next months issue, but this is bad practice. Not published, until it's published.

http://www.psychologicalscience.org/pdf/StrackRRR_manuscript_accepted.pdf

But this does validate what I've been saying about studies. Always check the 1.study 2. compare the abstract to the study for accuracy. 3. Check the article for accuracy to study & abstract contents.

Though this is a big snafu b/c truly the Wagemaker study is eventually going to be a benchmark study for the field. Just as the 2008 study is a benchmark study. It won't hurt us at the moment b/c we aren't ready to act.

I believe that contacting some of these folks in the future will be useful with the goal of getting assistance as to how to proceed.

The only actual post from my other thread that is directly useful here is on BIAS. If we are able to get to the actual "attitude" study this will help.

Aug 23, 2015 01:15PM , edited Aug 23, 2015 01:37PM by sas-schatzi

In many posts here and elsewhere, I have referred to bias. Bias is the bane of research. When a study is completed and it is submitted to a journal for consideration of publication, the journal assigns (asks) professionals i.e peers in the field to review the study. The choice of the reviewer is made by level of expertise regarding that subject. The belief being that if they're is an error the knowledgeable reviewer will recognize it. The reviewer task is to look at all sections of the study for accuracy. Generally, several or more reviewers are assigned to evaluate a study. This reflects back to what I said earlier re: the internet and the explosion of information. The controls of publishing studies only after serious peer review have been weakened. Plus, people that wish to skip scientific review have learned how to do this, and publish on the internet. Making their subjects appear to fit the rules of scientific review.

I'm happier now. I presented this better than I did before. The original thought for this post, was to find a working definition of bias that we could use. In this case, I love the internet LOL. I located a tutorial about bias that is mostly user friendly. Takes about 20 minutes to get through. Not that I expect any of us to become perfect about detecting bias, but I do believe we will be more questioning of what we are reading. It will, also, help when comparing several studies at one time.

One of the things I do, is read the objective(opening paragraph) and the conclusion of a study, or the abstract first. This allows me to focus on the key points within the study that the authors used to come to their conclusion. I find that it helps me detect bias within the study orbetween study results that don't jive with the conclusion. Hope this helps

http://familymed.uthscsa.edu/facultydevelopment/elearning/biasinresearch.htm

Hi, we now have three articles and several studies that show these soft science articles and studies have a serious problem with validating results by repeat studies. Keep them coming. Before too long I will make two posts

1. consolidating studies that point out the weakness of the peer review/publication process into one box. Future studies will be added too the same box aa a central source. So, that anyone wanting to review the subject can go to one box and all the material is in one location.

2. consolidating the disreputable/questionable/ failed studies into one box with a statement(something) that defines there problem.

I'll link two existing threads, that show how these future post boxes may look. Remember we have a work in progress. Ideas how to use the info will develop. But we are still in the info gathering phase. Please, continue to Gather and comment

If you look the two linked threads from a construction viewpoint, it may help to visualize and endpoint.

This link is to a toradol thread. If you look at them from a construction standpoint. The links define how to use it. It's very busy LOL. It consolidates all the research links in to one box, AND the three many related threads are linked. This box and the many related threads will be useful for a very long time.

https://community.breastcancer.org/forum/73/topics...

This thread is defined a central starting point, the topic box describes how it's used. It's included in the surgery template that is transferred each month as surgery threads are started.

https://community.breastcancer.org/forum/73/topics/843381?page=1#idx_11

Shep LOl What's the phrase that southerns use? Sweet darling............???? There's something better'n that

I do agree with your statement " Before one takes as true fact, any report of a new study, one needs to fully investigate all the relevant information upon which the facts were based."

I disagree with " Ain't nobody got time for that!". We have science geeks here. LOL. That's what this thread is all about, in the science forum. I suggested the forum a long time ago, when someone objected to me placing to much science stuff on a thread. What oddly happened is the Mods didn't tell me they did it. I didn't find it for awhile. I thought it so funny, from an ironic point of view.

We need non-geeks and geeks, to accomplish what we need to do in the end.......So, if you are a non-geek and hesitating about posting. Don't hesitate. Please, don't hesitate- POST. Each objection to a bad article has value.

Momine, what does your response refer too? It went over my head

Thanks Shetland