RESUMO
Background: This study aims to identify the preferred sources for acquiring knowledge about COVID-19 and to evaluate basic knowledge on critical scientific literature appraisal in students from medical schools located in Spanish speaking countries in Latin America. Methods: We designed an online survey of 15 closed-ended questions related to demographics, preferred resources for COVID-19 training, and items to assess critical appraisal skills. A snowball method was used for sampling. We conducted a descriptive analysis and Chi-squared tests to compare the proportion of correct identification of the concept of a preprint and a predatory journal when considering a) self-perceived level of knowledge, b) public vs private school, c) inclusion of a scientific literature appraisal subject in the curriculum, and d) progress in medical school. Results: Our sample included 770 valid responses, out of which most of the participants included were from Mexico (n=283, 36.8%) and Ecuador (n=229, 29.7%). Participants preferred using evidence-based clinical resources (EBCRs) to learn more about COVID-19 (n=182, 23.6%). The preferred study design was case report/series (n=218, 28.1%). We found that only 265 participants correctly identified the concept of a preprint (34.4%), while 243 students (31.6%) correctly identified the characteristics of a predatory journal. We found no significant differences in the proportion of correct answers regardless of the self-perceived level of knowledge, progress in medical school, or scientific literature critical appraisal classes. Conclusion: This study is novel in its approach of identifying sources of knowledge used by Latin American medical students and provides insights into the need to reinforce training in critical appraisal of scientific literature during medical school.
Assuntos
COVID-19 , Estudantes de Medicina , COVID-19/epidemiologia , Humanos , América Latina , Alfabetização , PandemiasRESUMO
BACKGROUND: Preprints are preliminary reports that have not been peer-reviewed. In December 2019, a novel coronavirus appeared in China, and since then, scientific production, including preprints, has drastically increased. In this study, we intend to evaluate how often preprints about COVID-19 were published in scholarly journals and cited. METHODS: We searched the iSearch COVID-19 portfolio to identify all preprints related to COVID-19 posted on bioRxiv, medRxiv, and Research Square from January 1, 2020, to May 31, 2020. We used a custom-designed program to obtain metadata using the Crossref public API. After that, we determined the publication rate and made comparisons based on citation counts using non-parametric methods. Also, we compared the publication rate, citation counts, and time interval from posting on a preprint server to publication in a scholarly journal among the three different preprint servers. RESULTS: Our sample included 5,061 preprints, out of which 288 were published in scholarly journals and 4,773 remained unpublished (publication rate of 5.7%). We found that articles published in scholarly journals had a significantly higher total citation count than unpublished preprints within our sample (p < 0.001), and that preprints that were eventually published had a higher citation count as preprints when compared to unpublished preprints (p < 0.001). As well, we found that published preprints had a significantly higher citation count after publication in a scholarly journal compared to as a preprint (p < 0.001). Our results also show that medRxiv had the highest publication rate, while bioRxiv had the highest citation count and shortest time interval from posting on a preprint server to publication in a scholarly journal. CONCLUSIONS: We found a remarkably low publication rate for preprints within our sample, despite accelerated time to publication by multiple scholarly journals. These findings could be partially attributed to the unprecedented surge in scientific production observed during the COVID-19 pandemic, which might saturate reviewing and editing processes in scholarly journals. However, our findings show that preprints had a significantly lower scientific impact, which might suggest that some preprints have lower quality and will not be able to endure peer-reviewing processes to be published in a peer-reviewed journal.
RESUMO
Alcohol abuse has been identified as a risk factor for contracting human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and accelerating disease progression. Our study aims to determine alcohol consumption rates among Ecuadorian HIV positive (HIV+) patients prior to diagnosis to evaluate its impact as an independent risk factor for contracting HIV. Additionally, we will examine post-diagnosis consumption rates among the HIV+ population.We provided anonymous questionnaires to 300 HIV+ patients and 600 internal medicine patients at 3 hospitals in Quito, Ecuador. Questionnaires quantified alcohol usage prior to HIV diagnosis, at time of diagnosis, and post-diagnosis while accounting for other potential HIV risk factors. We then determined frequencies of alcohol consumption and confounding variables. Finally, we performed a multivariable logistic regression controlling for confounders to determine the statistical significance of alcohol consumption as an independent risk factor for HIV.Our results showed increased odds for contracting HIV among those who drank daily (OR 5.3, CI 2.0-14.0) and those who consumed 6 or more alcoholic beverages on days they drank (OR 5.0, CI 3.1-8.2). Through multivariable analysis, we found that abstaining from binge drinking was a protective factor with an OR 0.5 (0.3-0.96). The percentage of HIV+ patients abstaining from alcohol increased from 30% twelve months prior to diagnosis to 57% after diagnosis.Our results show that alcohol abuse significantly increases the risk of contracting HIV. We found that prior to diagnosis, HIV patients consistently drank more frequently and a greater amount than the control group. Alcohol use significantly decreased among HIV+ patients after diagnosis.