Infection with COVID-19 has been associated with long-term symptoms, but the frequency, variety, and severity of these complications are not well understood. Many published commentaries have proposed ...plans for pandemic control that are primarily based on mortality rates among older individuals without considering long-term morbidity among individuals of all ages. Reliable estimates of such morbidity are important for patient care, prognosis, and development of public health policy.
To conduct a systematic review of studies examining the frequency and variety of persistent symptoms after COVID-19 infection.
A search of PubMed and Web of Science was conducted to identify studies published from January 1, 2020, to March 11, 2021, that examined persistent symptoms after COVID-19 infection. Persistent symptoms were defined as those persisting for at least 60 days after diagnosis, symptom onset, or hospitalization or at least 30 days after recovery from the acute illness or hospital discharge. Search terms included COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2, coronavirus, 2019-nCoV, long-term, after recovery, long-haul, persistent, outcome, symptom, follow-up, and longitudinal. All English-language articles that presented primary data from cohort studies that reported the prevalence of persistent symptoms among individuals with SARS-CoV-2 infection and that had clearly defined and sufficient follow-up were included. Case reports, case series, and studies that described symptoms only at the time of infection and/or hospitalization were excluded. A structured framework was applied to appraise study quality.
A total of 1974 records were identified; of those, 1247 article titles and abstracts were screened. After removal of duplicates and exclusions, 92 full-text articles were assessed for eligibility; 47 studies were deemed eligible, and 45 studies reporting 84 clinical signs or symptoms were included in the systematic review. Of 9751 total participants, 5266 (54.0%) were male; 30 of 45 studies reported mean or median ages younger than 60 years. Among 16 studies, most of which comprised participants who were previously hospitalized, the median proportion of individuals experiencing at least 1 persistent symptom was 72.5% (interquartile range IQR, 55.0%-80.0%). Individual symptoms occurring most frequently included shortness of breath or dyspnea (26 studies; median frequency, 36.0%; IQR, 27.6%-50.0%), fatigue or exhaustion (25 studies; median frequency, 40.0%; IQR, 31.0%-57.0%), and sleep disorders or insomnia (8 studies; median 29.4%, IQR, 24.4%-33.0%). There were wide variations in the design and quality of the studies, which had implications for interpretation and often limited direct comparability and combinability. Major design differences included patient populations, definitions of time zero (ie, the beginning of the follow-up interval), follow-up lengths, and outcome definitions, including definitions of illness severity.
This systematic review found that COVID-19 symptoms commonly persisted beyond the acute phase of infection, with implications for health-associated functioning and quality of life. Current studies of symptom persistence are highly heterogeneous, and future studies need longer follow-up, improved quality, and more standardized designs to reliably quantify risks.
What does research reproducibility mean? Goodman, Steven N; Fanelli, Daniele; Ioannidis, John P A
Science translational medicine,
06/2016, Letnik:
8, Številka:
341
Journal Article
Recenzirano
The language and conceptual framework of "research reproducibility" are nonstandard and unsettled across the sciences. In this Perspective, we review an array of explicit and implicit definitions of ...reproducibility and related terminology, and discuss how to avoid potential misunderstandings when these terms are used as a surrogate for "truth."
Aligning statistical and scientific reasoning Goodman, Steven N.
Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science),
06/2016, Letnik:
352, Številka:
6290
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Imagine the American Physical Society convening a panel of experts to issue a missive to the scientific community on the difference between weight and mass. And imagine that the impetus for such a ...message was a recognition that engineers and builders had been confusing these concepts for decades, making bridges, buildings, and other components of our physical infrastructure much weaker than previously suspected.
In a survey of participants in clinical trials, the majority believed that the potential benefits of data sharing outweighed the potential negative consequences and were willing to share their data ...with both scientists in universities and scientists in for-profit companies.
Assessment of researchers is necessary for decisions of hiring, promotion, and tenure. A burgeoning number of scientific leaders believe the current system of faculty incentives and rewards is ...misaligned with the needs of society and disconnected from the evidence about the causes of the reproducibility crisis and suboptimal quality of the scientific publication record. To address this issue, particularly for the clinical and life sciences, we convened a 22-member expert panel workshop in Washington, DC, in January 2017. Twenty-two academic leaders, funders, and scientists participated in the meeting. As background for the meeting, we completed a selective literature review of 22 key documents critiquing the current incentive system. From each document, we extracted how the authors perceived the problems of assessing science and scientists, the unintended consequences of maintaining the status quo for assessing scientists, and details of their proposed solutions. The resulting table was used as a seed for participant discussion. This resulted in six principles for assessing scientists and associated research and policy implications. We hope the content of this paper will serve as a basis for establishing best practices and redesigning the current approaches to assessing scientists by the many players involved in that process.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
The current concerns about reproducibility have focused attention on proper use of statistics across the sciences. This gives statisticians an extraordinary opportunity to change what are widely ...regarded as statistical practices detrimental to the cause of good science. However, how that should be done is enormously complex, made more difficult by the balkanization of research methods and statistical traditions across scientific subdisciplines. Working within those sciences while also allying with science reform movements-operating simultaneously on the micro and macro levels-are the key to making lasting change in applied science.
Scientific claims in biomedical research are typically derived from statistical analyses. However, misuse or misunderstanding of statistical procedures and results permeate the biomedical literature, ...affecting the validity of those claims. One approach journals have taken to address this issue is to enlist expert statistical reviewers. How many journals do this, how statistical review is incorporated, and how its value is perceived by editors is of interest. Here we report an expanded version of a survey conducted more than 20 years ago by Goodman and colleagues (1998) with the intention of characterizing contemporary statistical review policies at leading biomedical journals. We received eligible responses from 107 of 364 (28%) journals surveyed, across 57 fields, mostly from editors in chief. 34% (36/107) rarely or never use specialized statistical review, 34% (36/107) used it for 10-50% of their articles and 23% used it for all articles. These numbers have changed little since 1998 in spite of dramatically increased concern about research validity. The vast majority of editors regarded statistical review as having substantial incremental value beyond regular peer review and expressed comparatively little concern about the potential increase in reviewing time, cost, and difficulty identifying suitable statistical reviewers. Improved statistical education of researchers and different ways of employing statistical expertise are needed. Several proposals are discussed.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
As the scientific enterprise has grown in size and diversity, we need empirical evidence on the research process to test and apply interventions that make it more efficient and its results more ...reliable. Meta-research is an evolving scientific discipline that aims to evaluate and improve research practices. It includes thematic areas of methods, reporting, reproducibility, evaluation, and incentives (how to do, report, verify, correct, and reward science). Much work is already done in this growing field, but efforts to-date are fragmented. We provide a map of ongoing efforts and discuss plans for connecting the multiple meta-research efforts across science worldwide.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
The article discusses some of the different ways of differentiating useful from misleading evidence in observational research. Some of the challenges that experts face while trying to evaluate ...observational research are highlighted.
Questions involving medical therapies are often studied more than once. For example, numerous clinical trials have been conducted comparing opioids with placebos or nonopioid analgesics in the ...treatment of chronic pain. Meta-analysis is the process of quantitatively combining study results into a single summary estimate and is a foundational tool for evidence-based medicine. Random-effects meta-analysis is the most common approach.
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