Comparative study of the locked intramedullary nail and Ender pins in the treatment of tibial diaphyseal fractures

Design and level of evidence of studies published in two Brazilian medical journals recently indexed in the ISI Web of Science database

CONTEXT AND OBJECTIVES

The level of evidence and methodological quality of articles published in medical journals are important aids for clinicians in decision-making and also affect journals' impact factor. Although systematic reviews (SR) are considered to represent the highest level of evidence, their methodological quality is not homogeneous and they need to be as carefully assessed as other types of study. This study aimed to assess the design and level of evidence of articles published in 2007, in two recently indexed Brazilian journals (Clinics and Revista da Associação Médica Brasileira), and to evaluate the methodological quality of the SRs.

DESIGN AND SETTING

Descriptive study developed in the Brazilian Cochrane Center, Universidade Federal de São Paulo.

METHODS

All 289 published articles were classified according to types of study design and level of evidence. The SRs were critically appraised by two evaluators using the AMSTAR tool.

RESULTS

The most frequent design types were cross-sectional studies (39.9%), case reports (15.8%), experimental studies (10.8%) and narrative reviews (7.4%). According to the Oxford criteria, 25.6% of the articles were classified as level 4 or 5 evidence, while 2.8% were level 1. SRs represented only 2% of the published articles and their methodological quality scores were low.

CONCLUSIONS

The main design types among the published papers were observational and experimental studies and narrative reviews. SRs accounted for a small proportion of the articles and had low methodological scores. Brazilian medical journals need to encourage publication of greater numbers of clinically relevant papers of high methodological quality.

Revisão de artigos de ortopedia e medicina esportiva publicados em periódicos brasileiros

O objetivo desta revisão é apresentar os artigos com especial interesse nas áreas de Ortopedia e Medicina Esportiva publicados em periódicos nacionais qualificados pelo ISI, fora da área de publicação específica em Ortopedia em dois anos. Neste período foram localizados 38 artigos publicados em diversas revistas nacionais com distintos desenhos de pesquisa. Torna-se evidente uma maior divulgação das publicações em Ortopedia e Medicina Esportiva em periódicos gerais, viabilizando ao especialista maior fonte de referências e pesquisas.