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Data collection, quality, and reporting

This section considers manuscripts that assess quality aspects of data collected in all types of medical research studies, including systematic reviews and meta-analyses, along with how the data are reported in published form.

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  1. Pandemic events often trigger a surge of clinical trial activity aimed at rapidly evaluating therapeutic or preventative interventions. Ensuring rapid public access to the complete and unbiased trial record is...

    Authors: Christopher W. Jones, Amanda C. Adams, Elizabeth Murphy, Rachel P. King, Benjamin Saracco, Karen R. Stesis, Susan Cavanaugh, Brian W. Roberts and Timothy F. Platts-Mills

    Citation: BMC Medical Research Methodology 2021 21:120

    Content type: Research article

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  2. In the last decade Open Science principles have been successfully advocated for and are being slowly adopted in different research communities. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic many publishers and research...

    Authors: Lonni Besançon, Nathan Peiffer-Smadja, Corentin Segalas, Haiting Jiang, Paola Masuzzo, Cooper Smout, Eric Billy, Maxime Deforet and Clémence Leyrat

    Citation: BMC Medical Research Methodology 2021 21:117

    Content type: Commentary

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  3. The monitoring and evaluation of public health programs based on traditional face-to-face interviews in hard-to-reach and unstable regions present many challenges. Mobile phone-based methods are considered to ...

    Authors: Xiaomeng Chen, Diwakar Mohan, Abdoulaye Maïga, Emily Frost, Djeneba Coulibaly, Luay Basil, Birahim Yaguemar Gueye, Mariam Traore Guindo, Assa Sidibé Keita, Haoua Dembelé Keita and Melissa A. Marx

    Citation: BMC Medical Research Methodology 2021 21:115

    Content type: Research article

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  4. Systematic reviews (SRs) and meta-analyses (MAs) are commonly conducted to evaluate and summarize medical literature. This is especially useful in assessing in vitro studies for consistency. Our study aims to ...

    Authors: Linh Tran, Dao Ngoc Hien Tam, Abdelrahman Elshafay, Thao Dang, Kenji Hirayama and Nguyen Tien Huy

    Citation: BMC Medical Research Methodology 2021 21:101

    Content type: Research article

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  5. Systematic reviews (SRs) are considered one of the most reliable types of studies in evidence-based medicine. SRs rely on a comprehensive and systematic data gathering, including the search of academic literat...

    Authors: Tobias Justesen, Josefine Freyberg and Anders N. Ø. Schultz

    Citation: BMC Medical Research Methodology 2021 21:94

    Content type: Research article

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  6. Healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) represent a major Public Health issue. Hospital-based prevalence studies are a common tool of HAI surveillance, but data quality problems and non-representativeness can ...

    Authors: A. D’Ambrosio, J. Garlasco, F. Quattrocolo, C. Vicentini and C. M. Zotti

    Citation: BMC Medical Research Methodology 2021 21:90

    Content type: Technical advance

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  7. The COVID-19 pandemic has become a source of fear across the world. Measuring the level or significance of fear in different populations may help identify populations and areas in need of public health and edu...

    Authors: Ashley Elizabeth Muller, Jan Peter William Himmels and Stijn Van de Velde

    Citation: BMC Medical Research Methodology 2021 21:82

    Content type: Research article

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  8. The expansion of access to antiretroviral therapy (ART) has been accompanied by an increase in pre-treatment drug resistance (PDR). While it is critical to monitor the increasing prevalence of PDR across count...

    Authors: Lawrence Mbuagbaw, Clémence Ongolo-Zogo, Olivia C. Mendoza, Babalwa Zani, Frederick Morfaw, Agatha Nyambi, Annie Wang, Michel Kiflen, Hussein El-Kechen, Alvin Leenus, Mark Youssef, Nadia Rehman, Lucas Hermans, Virginia MacDonald and Silvia Bertagnolio

    Citation: BMC Medical Research Methodology 2021 21:76

    Content type: Research article

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  9. Recruitment of general practitioners (GPs) and their patients is reported as one of the most challenging steps when undertaking primary care research. The present paper describes the recruitment process of a c...

    Authors: Sonia Lech, Julie L. O’Sullivan, Leonard Wellmann, Juliana Supplieth, Susanne Döpfmer, Paul Gellert, Adelheid Kuhlmey and Johanna Nordheim

    Citation: BMC Medical Research Methodology 2021 21:61

    Content type: Research article

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  10. Randomized controlled trials in orthopaedics are powered to mainly find large effect sizes. A possible discrepancy between the estimated and the real mean difference is a challenge for statistical inference ba...

    Authors: Lauri Raittio, Antti Launonen, Ville M. Mattila and Aleksi Reito

    Citation: BMC Medical Research Methodology 2021 21:59

    Content type: Research article

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  11. Recruiting asymptomatic participants with early disease stages into studies is challenging and only little is known about facilitators and barriers to screening and recruitment of study participants. Thus we a...

    Authors: Jan Henrik Terheyden, Charlotte Behning, Anna Lüning, Ludmila Wintergerst, Pier G. Basile, Diana Tavares, Beatriz A. Melício, Sergio Leal, George Weissgerber, Ulrich F. O. Luhmann, David P. Crabb, Adnan Tufail, Carel Hoyng, Moritz Berger, Matthias Schmid, Rufino Silva…

    Citation: BMC Medical Research Methodology 2021 21:54

    Content type: Research article

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  12. Systematic Reviews (SRs) can build the groundwork for evidence-based health care decision-making. A sound methodological quality of SRs is crucial. AMSTAR (A Measurement Tool to Assess Systematic Reviews) is a...

    Authors: Stefanie Bühn, Peggy Ober, Tim Mathes, Uta Wegewitz, Anja Jacobs and Dawid Pieper

    Citation: BMC Medical Research Methodology 2021 21:51

    Content type: Research article

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  13. Data collection is the most critical stage in any population health study and correctly implementing fieldwork enhances the quality of collected information. However, even the most carefully planned large-scal...

    Authors: Mir Baz Khan, Sidrah Nausheen, Imtiaz Hussain, Kristy Hackett, Kaneez Zehra, Khalid Feroze, David Canning, Iqbal Shah and Sajid Bashir Soofi

    Citation: BMC Medical Research Methodology 2021 21:38

    Content type: Research article

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  14. Most health surveys have experienced a decline in response rates. A structured approach to evaluate whether a decreasing - and potentially more selective - response over time biased estimated trends in health ...

    Authors: Famke J. M. Mölenberg, Chris de Vries, Alex Burdorf and Frank J. van Lenthe

    Citation: BMC Medical Research Methodology 2021 21:37

    Content type: Research article

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  15. Randomized controlled trials are considered the gold standard to evaluate causal associations, whereas assessing causality in observational studies is challenging.

    Authors: Emilia Gvozdenović, Lucio Malvisi, Elisa Cinconze, Stijn Vansteelandt, Phoebe Nakanwagi, Emmanuel Aris and Dominique Rosillon

    Citation: BMC Medical Research Methodology 2021 21:35

    Content type: Research article

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  16. To evaluate the completeness of reporting abstracts of systematic reviews (SRs) before and after the publication of the PRISMA-A checklist in 2013 and to assess if an association exists between abstract charac...

    Authors: Milagros Adobes Martin, Sala Santamans Faustino, Inmaculada Llario Almiñana, Riccardo Aiuto, Roberto Rotundo and Daniele Garcovich

    Citation: BMC Medical Research Methodology 2021 21:33

    Content type: Research article

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  17. Retention of participants in cohort studies is a major challenge. A better understanding of all elements involved in participation and attrition phenomena in particular settings is needed to develop effective ...

    Authors: Sandra C. S. Marques, Julia Doetsch, Georgia Abate, Anne Brødsgaard, Grazia Colombo, Marina Cuttini, Pernille Pedersen and Henrique Barros

    Citation: BMC Medical Research Methodology 2021 21:19

    Content type: Research article

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  18. Since the start of the COVID-19 outbreak, a large number of COVID-19-related papers have been published. However, concerns about the risk of expedited science have been raised. We aimed at reviewing and catego...

    Authors: Marc Raynaud, Huanxi Zhang, Kevin Louis, Valentin Goutaudier, Jiali Wang, Quentin Dubourg, Yongcheng Wei, Zeynep Demir, Charlotte Debiais, Olivier Aubert, Yassine Bouatou, Carmen Lefaucheur, Patricia Jabre, Longshan Liu, Changxi Wang, Xavier Jouven…

    Citation: BMC Medical Research Methodology 2021 21:1

    Content type: Research article

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  19. Qualitative methods offer a unique contribution to health research. Academic dissertations in the medical field provide an opportunity to explore research practice. Our aim was to assess the use of qualitative...

    Authors: Charlotte Ullrich, Anna Stürmlinger, Michel Wensing and Katja Krug

    Citation: BMC Medical Research Methodology 2020 20:301

    Content type: Research article

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  20. Scores on an outcome measurement instrument depend on the type and settings of the instrument used, how instructions are given to patients, how professionals administer and score the instrument, etc. The impac...

    Authors: L. B. Mokkink, M. Boers, C. P. M. van der Vleuten, L. M. Bouter, J. Alonso, D. L. Patrick, H. C. W. de Vet and C. B. Terwee

    Citation: BMC Medical Research Methodology 2020 20:293

    Content type: Research article

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  21. The quality of data obtained through Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) is highly dependent on appropriate design and facilitation. In low-income settings steep power gradients between researcher and participants,...

    Authors: Pauline F. D. Scheelbeek, Yashua A. Hamza, Joanna Schellenberg and Zelee Hill

    Citation: BMC Medical Research Methodology 2020 20:287

    Content type: Research article

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  22. Systematic reviews allow health decisions to be informed by the best available research evidence. However, their number is proliferating quickly, and many skills are required to identify all the relevant revie...

    Authors: Gabriel Rada, Daniel Pérez, Felipe Araya-Quintanilla, Camila Ávila, Gonzalo Bravo-Soto, Rocío Bravo-Jeria, Aldo Cánepa, Daniel Capurro, Victoria Castro-Gutiérrez, Valeria Contreras, Javiera Edwards, Jorge Faúndez, Damián Garrido, Magdalena Jiménez, Valentina Llovet, Diego Lobos…

    Citation: BMC Medical Research Methodology 2020 20:286

    Content type: Database

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  23. While there is wide consensus that the public should be consulted about emerging technology early in development, it is difficult to elicit public opinion about innovations unfamiliar to lay audiences. We soug...

    Authors: Cynthia E. Schairer, Cynthia Triplett, Anna Buchman, Omar S. Akbari and Cinnamon S. Bloss

    Citation: BMC Medical Research Methodology 2020 20:273

    Content type: Research article

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  24. Recruitment of research participants poses challenges in socioeconomically deprived areas. The Awareness and Beliefs About Cancer (ABACus) phase 3 Randomised Control Trial recruited adult participants from soc...

    Authors: Vasiliki Kolovou, Yvonne Moriarty, Stephanie Gilbert, Harriet Quinn-Scoggins, Julia Townson, Louise Padgett, Sioned Owen, Peter Buckle, Adrian Edwards, Julie Hepburn, Mandy Lau, Maura Matthews, Caroline Mitchell, Richard Neal, Rebecca Playle, Mike Robling…

    Citation: BMC Medical Research Methodology 2020 20:272

    Content type: Research article

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  25. Aboriginal people are under-reported on administrative health data in Australia. Various approaches have been used or proposed to improve reporting of Aboriginal people using linked records. This cross-section...

    Authors: Michael A. Nelson, Kim Lim, Jason Boyd, Damien Cordery, Allan Went, David Meharg, Lisa Jackson-Pulver, Scott Winch and Lee K. Taylor

    Citation: BMC Medical Research Methodology 2020 20:267

    Content type: Research article

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  26. A competing interest is an important source of bias in research and disclosure is frequently employed as a strategy to manage it. Considering the importance of systematic reviews (SRs) and the varying prevalen...

    Authors: Jiajie Yu, Guanyue Su, Allison Hirst, Zhengyue Yang, You Zhang and Youping Li

    Citation: BMC Medical Research Methodology 2020 20:260

    Content type: Research article

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  27. Data extraction forms link systematic reviews with primary research and provide the foundation for appraising, analysing, summarising and interpreting a body of evidence. This makes their development, pilot te...

    Authors: Roland Brian Büchter, Alina Weise and Dawid Pieper

    Citation: BMC Medical Research Methodology 2020 20:259

    Content type: Research article

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  28. Systematic reviews often require substantial resources, partially due to the large number of records identified during searching. Although artificial intelligence may not be ready to fully replace human review...

    Authors: C. Hamel, S. E. Kelly, K. Thavorn, D. B. Rice, G. A. Wells and B. Hutton

    Citation: BMC Medical Research Methodology 2020 20:256

    Content type: Research article

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  29. Web-surveys are increasingly used in population studies. Yet, web-surveys targeting older individuals are still uncommon for various reasons. However, with younger cohorts approaching older age, the potentials...

    Authors: Susanne Kelfve, Marie Kivi, Boo Johansson and Magnus Lindwall

    Citation: BMC Medical Research Methodology 2020 20:252

    Content type: Research article

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  30. Acute Care Surgery (ACS) was developed as a structured, team-based approach to providing round-the-clock emergency general surgery (EGS) care for adult patients needing treatment for diseases such as cholecyst...

    Authors: Heena P. Santry, Scott A. Strassels, Angela M. Ingraham, Wendelyn M. Oslock, Kevin B. Ricci, Anghela Z. Paredes, Victor K. Heh, Holly E. Baselice, Amy P. Rushing, Adrian Diaz, Vijaya T. Daniel, M. Didem Ayturk and Catarina I. Kiefe

    Citation: BMC Medical Research Methodology 2020 20:247

    Content type: Research article

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  31. Guidelines on public health and health system interventions often involve considerations beyond effectiveness and safety to account for the impact that these interventions have on the wider systems in which th...

    Authors: A. Movsisyan, E. Rehfuess and S. L. Norris

    Citation: BMC Medical Research Methodology 2020 20:245

    Content type: Review

    Published on:

  32. There is consensus that health services commissioning and clinical practice should be driven by scientific evidence. However, workload pressures, accessibility of peer reviewed publications and skills to find,...

    Authors: Joanna K. Anderson, Emma Howarth, Maris Vainre, Ayla Humphrey, Peter B. Jones and Tamsin J. Ford

    Citation: BMC Medical Research Methodology 2020 20:242

    Content type: Research article

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  33. Bias in randomized controlled trials (RCTs) can lead to underestimation or overestimation of the true effects of interventions. Surgical RCTs may suffer from the risk of bias (RoB) that is avoidable in trials ...

    Authors: Ognjen Barcot, Matija Boric, Svjetlana Dosenovic, Marija Cavar, Antonia Jelicic Kadic, Tina Poklepovic Pericic, Ivana Vukicevic, Ivana Vuka and Livia Puljak

    Citation: BMC Medical Research Methodology 2020 20:240

    Content type: Research article

    Published on:

  35. Master of public health (MPH) plays an important role in Chinese medical education, and the dissertations is an important part of MPH education. In MPH dissertations, most are observational studies. Compared w...

    Authors: Shuangyang Dai, Xiaobin Zhou, Hong Xu, Beibei Li and Jingao Zhang

    Citation: BMC Medical Research Methodology 2020 20:230

    Content type: Research article

    Published on:

  36. Claims databases are generally considered inadequate for obesity research due to suboptimal capture of body mass index (BMI) measurements. This might not be true for bariatric surgery because of reimbursement ...

    Authors: Xiaojuan Li, Kristina H. Lewis, Katherine Callaway, J. Frank Wharam and Sengwee Toh

    Citation: BMC Medical Research Methodology 2020 20:225

    Content type: Research article

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  37. Clinical Trials (CTs) help in testing and validating the safety and efficacy of newly discovered drugs on specific patient population cohorts. However, these trials usually experience many challenges, such as ...

    Authors: Ilhaam A. Omar, Raja Jayaraman, Khaled Salah, Mecit Can Emre Simsekler, Ibrar Yaqoob and Samer Ellahham

    Citation: BMC Medical Research Methodology 2020 20:224

    Content type: Technical advance

    Published on:

  38. Clinical uncertainty and equipoise are vague notions that play important roles in contemporary problems of medical care and research, including the design and conduct of pragmatic trials. Our goal was to show ...

    Authors: Robert Fahed, Tim E. Darsaut, Behzad Farzin, Miguel Chagnon and Jean Raymond

    Citation: BMC Medical Research Methodology 2020 20:214

    Content type: Research article

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  39. Although protocol registration of systematic reviews/meta-analysis (SR/MA) is still not mandatory, it is highly recommended that authors publish their SR/MA protocols prior to submitting their manuscripts for ...

    Authors: Gehad Mohamed Tawfik, Hoang Thi Nam Giang, Sherief Ghozy, Ahmed M. Altibi, Hend Kandil, Huu-Hoai Le, Peter Samuel Eid, Ibrahim Radwan, Omar Mohamed Makram, Tong Thi Thu Hien, Mahmoud Sherif, As-Saba Hossain, Tai Luu Lam Thang, Livia Puljak, Hosni Salem, Tarek Numair…

    Citation: BMC Medical Research Methodology 2020 20:213

    Content type: Research article

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  40. Longitudinal cohort studies have made significant contributions to medical discoveries and provide the impetus for health interventions which reduce the risk of disease. Establishing and maintaining these coho...

    Authors: Leesa Costello, Julie Dare, Manon Dontje and Leon Straker

    Citation: BMC Medical Research Methodology 2020 20:202

    Content type: Research article

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  41. While conducting systemic reviews, searching for ongoing or unpublished trials is critical to address publication bias. As of April 2019, records of ongoing or unpublished randomized and/or quasi-randomized co...

    Authors: Masahiro Banno, Yasushi Tsujimoto and Yuki Kataoka

    Citation: BMC Medical Research Methodology 2020 20:200

    Content type: Research article

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  42. Although the WHO Trial Registration Data Set (TRDS) has been published for many years, the quality of clinical trial registrations with traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is still not satisfactory, especially ...

    Authors: Xuan Zhang, Liang Lan, Jacky C. P. Chan, Linda L. D. Zhong, Chung-Wah Cheng, Wai-Ching Lam, Ran Tian, Chen Zhao, Tai-Xiang Wu, Hong-Cai Shang, Ai-Ping Lyu and Zhao-Xiang Bian

    Citation: BMC Medical Research Methodology 2020 20:192

    Content type: Research article

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  43. Most researchers in Uzbekistan prefer to publish their reports in journals of their home country. Moreover, the proportion of healthcare practitioners who prefer to use these national sources of information al...

    Authors: Timur Aripov, Dilfuza Aniyozova and Irina Gorbunova

    Citation: BMC Medical Research Methodology 2020 20:189

    Content type: Research article

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  44. Evaluating women’s satisfaction should reflect the entire maternity care experience (antenatal, intrapartum and postnatal). The Women’s Experience Maternity Care Scale (WEMCS) questionnaire enables this assess...

    Authors: L. Floris and C. de Labrusse

    Citation: BMC Medical Research Methodology 2020 20:188

    Content type: Research article

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  45. With declining response proportions in population-based research the importance of evaluating the effectiveness of measures aimed at improving response increases. We investigated whether an additional flyer wi...

    Authors: Stefan Rach, Kathrin Günther and Birte Hadeler

    Citation: BMC Medical Research Methodology 2020 20:187

    Content type: Research article

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  46. Population estimates of alcohol consumption vary widely among samples of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (Indigenous) Australians. Some of this difference may relate to non-representative sampling. In so...

    Authors: KS Kylie Lee, Michelle S. Fitts, James H. Conigrave, Catherine Zheng, Jimmy Perry, Scott Wilson, Dudley Ah Chee, Shane Bond, Keith Weetra, Tanya N. Chikritzhs, Tim Slade and Katherine M. Conigrave

    Citation: BMC Medical Research Methodology 2020 20:183

    Content type: Research article

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  47. Since the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak in December 2019, a substantial body of COVID-19 medical literature has been generated. As of June 2020, gaps and longitudinal trends in the COVID-19 medical litera...

    Authors: Nan Liu, Marcel Lucas Chee, Chenglin Niu, Pin Pin Pek, Fahad Javaid Siddiqui, John Pastor Ansah, David Bruce Matchar, Sean Shao Wei Lam, Hairil Rizal Abdullah, Angelique Chan, Rahul Malhotra, Nicholas Graves, Mariko Siyue Koh, Sungwon Yoon, Andrew Fu Wah Ho, Daniel Shu Wei Ting…

    Citation: BMC Medical Research Methodology 2020 20:177

    Content type: Research article

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  48. Text messaging systems are used to collect data on symptom prevalence. Using a text messaging system, we evaluated the effects of question load, question frequency, and financial incentive on response rates an...

    Authors: Ryan Rego, Samuel Watson, Philbert Ishengoma, Philemon Langat, Hezekiah Pireh Otieno and Richard Lilford

    Citation: BMC Medical Research Methodology 2020 20:174

    Content type: Research article

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  49. The research community reacted rapidly to the emergence of COVID-19. We aimed to assess characteristics of journal articles, preprint articles, and registered trial protocols about COVID-19 and its causal agen...

    Authors: Mahir Fidahic, Danijela Nujic, Renata Runjic, Marta Civljak, Filipa Markotic, Zvjezdana Lovric Makaric and Livia Puljak

    Citation: BMC Medical Research Methodology 2020 20:161

    Content type: Research article

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  50. Clinical practice guidelines have become increasingly widely used to guide quality improvement of clinical practice. Qualitative research may be a useful way to improve the quality and implementation of guidel...

    Authors: Yun-Yun Wang, Dan-Dan Liang, Cui Lu, Yue-Xian Shi, Jing Zhang, Yue Cao, Cheng Fang, Di Huang and Ying-Hui Jin

    Citation: BMC Medical Research Methodology 2020 20:160

    Content type: Research article

    Published on:

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