Pediatric literature shift: Growth of meta-analyses was 23 times greater than growth of randomized trials

• Published in: Journal of clinical epidemiology Vol. 121; pp. 112 - 114
• Main Authors: Niforatos, Joshua D., Chaitoff, Alexander, Weaver, Matt, Feinstein, Max M., Johansen, Michael E.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Elsevier Inc 01.05.2020; Elsevier Limited
• Subjects: Adolescent; Authoring; Bibliometrics; Boolean algebra; Cardiology; Child; Child, Preschool; Children; Clinical trials; Editing; Gastroenterology; Gynecology; Humans; Infant; Infants; Internal Medicine; Medical Subject Headings-MeSH; Meta-Analysis as Topic; Neurology; Obstetrics; Pediatrics; Pediatrics - statistics & numerical data; Pediatrics - trends; Psychiatry; Publishing - statistics & numerical data; Publishing - trends; Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic - statistics & numerical data; Systematic Reviews as Topic; Trends; Writing
• ISSN: 0895-4356; 1878-5921; 1878-5921
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jclinepi.2020.01.014

To identify pediatric age groups, medical subject headings (MeSH) categories for “Child”, “Infant”, and “Adolescent” were used with Boolean operators (Fig. 1). Across clinical topic areas for “Infant” RCTs, gastroenterology/hepatology, cardiology, pulmonary medicine, neurology, and obstetrics/gynecology had more yearly publications compared to other specialties, whereas psychiatry and neurology had substantially more RCTs for “Children” (Fig. 2A–B). Efforts to mandate trial reporting, to address barriers to high-quality research, and to ensure focus on RCTs to inform appropriate SRMAs require further attention.CRediT authorship contribution statement Joshua D. Niforatos: Conceptualization, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Writing - original draft, Writing - review & editing.