Quality Assessment of Studies Published in Open Access and Subscription Journals: Results of a Systematic Evaluation

Along with the proliferation of Open Access (OA) publishing, the interest for comparing the scientific quality of studies published in OA journals versus subscription journals has also increased. With our study we aimed to compare the methodological quality and the quality of reporting of primary ep...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:PloS one Vol. 11; no. 5; p. e0154217
Main Authors: Pastorino, Roberta, Milovanovic, Sonja, Stojanovic, Jovana, Efremov, Ljupcho, Amore, Rosarita, Boccia, Stefania
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: United States Public Library of Science 11.05.2016
Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Subjects:
Adhesion
Analysis
Bibliometrics
Cohort analysis
Epidemiologic Studies
Epidemiology
Evaluation
Humans
Identification methods
Journal Impact Factor
Medicine and Health Sciences
Meta-analysis
Meta-Analysis as Topic
Nitric-oxide synthase
Observational studies
Open access journals
Open access publishing
Open Access Publishing - ethics
Open Access Publishing - standards
Peer Review, Research - ethics
Peer Review, Research - standards
Periodicals as Topic - ethics
Periodicals as Topic - standards
Physical Sciences
Publishing industry
Quality assessment
Quality Control
Quality management
Research and Analysis Methods
Research Design
Reviews
Scholarly publishing
Science Policy
Studies
Systematic review
Italy
ISSN:1932-6203, 1932-6203
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Along with the proliferation of Open Access (OA) publishing, the interest for comparing the scientific quality of studies published in OA journals versus subscription journals has also increased. With our study we aimed to compare the methodological quality and the quality of reporting of primary epidemiological studies and systematic reviews and meta-analyses published in OA and non-OA journals. In order to identify the studies to appraise, we listed all OA and non-OA journals which published in 2013 at least one primary epidemiologic study (case-control or cohort study design), and at least one systematic review or meta-analysis in the field of oncology. For the appraisal, we picked up the first studies published in 2013 with case-control or cohort study design from OA journals (Group A; n = 12), and in the same time period from non-OA journals (Group B; n = 26); the first systematic reviews and meta-analyses published in 2013 from OA journals (Group C; n = 15), and in the same time period from non-OA journals (Group D; n = 32). We evaluated the methodological quality of studies by assessing the compliance of case-control and cohort studies to Newcastle and Ottawa Scale (NOS) scale, and the compliance of systematic reviews and meta-analyses to Assessment of Multiple Systematic Reviews (AMSTAR) scale. The quality of reporting was assessed considering the adherence of case-control and cohort studies to STrengthening the Reporting of OBservational studies in Epidemiology (STROBE) checklist, and the adherence of systematic reviews and meta-analyses to Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) checklist. Among case-control and cohort studies published in OA and non-OA journals, we did not observe significant differences in the median value of NOS score (Group A: 7 (IQR 7-8) versus Group B: 8 (7-9); p = 0.5) and in the adherence to STROBE checklist (Group A, 75% versus Group B, 80%; p = 0.1). The results did not change after adjustment for impact factor. The compliance with AMSTAR and adherence to PRISMA checklist were comparable between systematic reviews and meta-analyses published in OA and non-OA journals (Group C, 46.0% versus Group D, 55.0%; p = 0.06), (Group C, 72.0% versus Group D, 76.0%; p = 0.1), respectively). The epidemiological studies published in OA journals in the field of oncology approach the same methodological quality and quality of reporting as studies published in non-OA journals.
Bibliography:ObjectType-Article-1
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-2
content type line 14
content type line 23
Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
Conceived and designed the experiments: RP SB. Performed the experiments: RA LE SM RP JS. Analyzed the data: RP. Wrote the paper: RP SB JS SM.
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0154217