Tanya,
We published a paper on FUTON Bias last year. Here is the reference and abstract.
Mayo Clin Proc. 2004 Aug;79(8):1001-6.
Impact of FUTON and NAA bias on visibility of research.
Murali NS, Murali HR, Auethavekiat P, Erwin PJ, Mandrekar JN, Manek NJ, Ghosh AK.
Division of Nephrology and Hypertension, Mayo Clinic College of Medicine, Rochester, Minn 55905, USA.
OBJECTIVE: To determine whether availability of journals on MEDLINE as FUTON (full text on the Net) affects their impact factor. MATERIAL AND METHODS: A comprehensive search identified 324 cardiology, nephrology, and rheumatology/immunology journals on-line until May 2003. The status of these journals was ascertained in MEDLINE as having FUTON, abstracts only, and NAA (no abstract available). Impact factors for all available journals from the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) were abstracted. RESULTS: Of the 324 Journals, 124 (38.3%) were FUTON, 138 (42.6%) had abstracts only, and 62 (19.1%) had NAA. The mean (+/-SEM) impact factor was 3.24 (+/-0.32), 1.64 (+/-0.30), and 0.14 (+/-0.45), respectively. Of the 324 current journals, 159 existed in both the pre- and the post-Internet era. An analysis of the change (ie, delta) in impact factor from the pre- to post-Internet era revealed a trend between journals with FUTON and abstracts only (P=.17, Wilcoxon rank sum test)!
. Similar analyses of the delta of cardiology journals revealed a statistically significant difference between Journals with FUTON and abstracts only (P=.04, Wilcoxon rank sum test). CONCLUSION: FUTON bias is the tendency to peruse what is more readily available. This is the first study to show that on-line availability of medical literature may increase the impact factor and that such increase tends to be greater in FUTON journals. Failure to consider this bias may affect a journal's impact factor. Also, it could limit consideration of medical literature by ignoring relevant NAA articles and thereby influence medical education akin to publication or language bias.
Amit K. Ghosh, MD, FACP
Associate Program Director
General Internal Medicine Research Fellowship
Mayo Clinic
W-17 B, GIM
200 1st ST. SW
Rochester, MN
507-538-1128 (Phone)
507-284-4959 (Fax)
-----Original Message-----
From: Evidence based health (EBH) [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Feddern, Tanya
Sent: Monday, July 18, 2005 7:56 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Futon/NAA Biases RE: Critically appraising abstracts
Hello. Have you heard of the FUTON bias and the NAA bias? Futon=Full
Text On the Net; NAA=No Abstract Available. It was first introduced by
Wentz in a letter to the editor in Lancet:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=PureSearch&db=pubmed&d
etails_term=futon%5BAll%20Fields%5D%20AND%20%28%22bias%20%28epidemiology
%29%22%5BMeSH%20Terms%5D%20OR%20bias%5BText%20Word%5D%29
Take care,
Tanya
Tanya Feddern, MLIS, AHIP, MOT, OTR/L
http://www.geocities.com/nqiya/EBMbib.html
http://www.geocities.com/nqiya/index.html
Evidence-Based Medicine Assistant Professor; Reference & Education
Services Librarian
University of Miami Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine, Louis Calder
Memorial Library
-----Original Message-----
From: Evidence based health (EBH)
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Mike/Linda
Stuart
Sent: Saturday, July 16, 2005 9:54 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Critically appraising abstracts
Jon,
My approach is to use abstracts for exlusion only. For example,
abstracts can help quickly dump observational studies when you are
dealing with an issue of screening, prevention or therapy. Abstracts can
also help with getting rid of irrelevant studies, e.g., reporting
inappropriate (e.g. some intermediate) outcome measures. Since the
usual goal is to know the threats to validity and grade the study, I
believe full text is required in most situations. Mike
-- Michael Stuart MD
President, Delfini Group,
Clinical Asst Professor, UW School of Medicine
6831 31st Ave N.E.
Seattle, Washington 98115
206-854-3680 Mobile Phone
206-527-6146 Home Office
[log in to unmask]
www.delfini.org
-----Original Message-----
From: Evidence based health (EBH)
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Jon Brassey
Sent: Friday, July 15, 2005 10:13 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Critically appraising abstracts
Hi!
In the ideal world health professionals would have access to full text
articles, the time to read them and the time to fully appraise them.
But they don't, frequently relying on abstracts.
Has any work been carried out on critically appraising abstracts?
If not what do people think of the idea of developing one? If we work
on the premise that doctors frequently rely on abstracts surely it makes
sense that they are as critical as possible.
If people are still with me and think it's a good idea any idea on what
'features' should be examined e.g. appropriate methodology, sample size,
appropriate outcomes etc.
jon
Jon Brassey
TRIP Database
www.tripdatabase.com
NLH Q&A Service
www.clinicalanswers.nhs.uk
ATTRACT
www.attract.wales.nhs.uk
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