A clinical trial is a planned experiment designed to evaluate the benefits of a treatment for a specific medical condition. A well- designed clinical trial is the most rigorous research design for evaluating treatments. However, there several situations where it is neither possible nor ethical to conduct a clinical trial. In these situations, observational studies may be more appropriate in evaluating possible associations between a factor of interest (not necessarily treatment) and a particular disease or outcome. In observational study designs, the investigator has no control over the exposure of individuals. Study participants are observed and data are collected but nothing is done to influence either the exposure or the course of events. We will consider three main observational study designs in this article.
Research Personnel

Interviewing is one of the more commonly deployed data collection method in qualitative research. Textbooks and journal articles abound that describe the process for conducting various types of interviews. In this paper, I offer a short methodological and reflexive discussion of an interview I conducted as part of a course requirement, focusing on the potential impact of the interview process on the collection and interpretation of data. The purpose of this paper is to draw researchers' attention to some issues that may arise in the context of a qualitative interview, and to propose possible approaches to addressing these.

PURPOSE: To determine the publication rate of abstracts presented at the scientific meetings of the Korean Radiological Society(KRS) and to compare the contents of publication articles and presentation abstracts. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Between 1992 and 1996 it was determined whether or not 2457 abstracts presented at meetings of the KRS were published in the Journal of the Society. Publications that matched presentations were identified, and the proportion of abstracts published was calculated. Differences in publication rates between spring and autumn meetings, and between scientific sessions(SS) and scientific exhibitions(SE) were examined. The elapsed time between presentation and publication was recorded. The contents ( authors, title, purpose, materials and methods, results, and conclusion) of abstracts presented at scientific meetings of the KRS were compared with those of articles published in the Journal of the KRS. RESULTS: We found that the mean proportion of abstracts published as articles was 25%. There was a significantly different publication rate between spring and autumn meetings, and between SS and SE. The mean time lapse between presentation and publication was 13.3 months. The mean number of authors was 4.8 in the case of abstracts and 5.8 in the case of articles. Of the 614 articles, 98 (16 %) showed no evidence of a change of first author. Articles were more likely to mention an additional coauthor( 81 % versus 66 % , p < 0.05) when the first author was a resident than when he or she was a staff member. The purpose and conclusion of the studies remained the same in a high percentage of cases (87% for purpose and 71% for conclusion). CONCLUSION: The fact that only 25% of the abstracts presented at scientific meetings of the KRS have been published is one that should be of concern to the investigators involved. It is important that studies undertaken should proceed to the publication stage. though it is recognized that the discrepany in this respect is probably due to factors which are not academic.
Humans ; Publications ; Research Personnel

The statistical analysis is an essential procedure ensuring that the results of researches are based on evidences rather than opinion. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the statistical methods and errors in JKPRS and to propose improvement plan.We reviewed 326 articles published in JKPRS between 1996 and 1999. We evaluated the validity of used statistical methodology with our own checklist based on "Guideline for statistical reporting in articles for medical journals" by "International committee of medical journal editors". Among 326 articles, case(series) report and original articles were 167(51.2%) and 156(47.9%) respectively. In 159(48.8%) papers statistical method was not used. In 94 (28.8%) papers, only descriptive methods were used, while in 73 papers(22.4%) descriptive and inferential methods were used. The papers published in 1999 used more statistical methods than in 1996. Among the papers which used descriptive method, 90 papers(53.0%) showed appropriate central tendency and dispersion. But, in papers which used inferential method, 24 papers(33.0%) applied appropriate methods and only 4 papers(5.5%) were satisfactory in utilization of statistical methodology. It is suggested that more consultation of investigators with bio-statisticians, a basic training on statistical methods in resident programs, and more extensive statistical refereeing are needed.
Checklist ; Humans ; Research Personnel

China ; Research Personnel

PURPOSE: This is for analyzing the recent citations from papers enrolled in the Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing and understanding correct marking of references. METHOD: Targeted 2,334 references in 93 articles introduced from Feb. 2002 to Dec. 2002 which are applied current contribution rules of the Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing. RESULT: 1. 25 references are quoted per article and particularly foreign journals are most frequently quoted. Among foreign journals, Nursing Research is most frequently used. The Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing is also mostly referred material among national journals. 2. The retrieval rate is prove to be 1,539(83.8%) and 267(11.7%) are without errors and the other 2,022 have at least more than one error regardless of frequency. 3. Major error rate of periodical publication is 484(36.8%) and most occurred in the inconsistency of titles between articles and references. 4. Foreign journals have much more errors than national ones concerning periodical publications. CONCLUSION: Correct citation and marking of references can be achieved through strict reviewing process by authors, editors, publishers and paper investigators. In consequence, it is expected that these processes can cause improvement of quality in impact factor and papers.
Humans ; Nursing Research ; Nursing* ; Publications ; Research Personnel

PURPOSE: This is for analyzing the recent citations from papers enrolled in the Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing and understanding correct marking of references. METHOD: Targeted 2,334 references in 93 articles introduced from Feb. 2002 to Dec. 2002 which are applied current contribution rules of the Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing. RESULT: 1. 25 references are quoted per article and particularly foreign journals are most frequently quoted. Among foreign journals, Nursing Research is most frequently used. The Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing is also mostly referred material among national journals. 2. The retrieval rate is prove to be 1,539(83.8%) and 267(11.7%) are without errors and the other 2,022 have at least more than one error regardless of frequency. 3. Major error rate of periodical publication is 484(36.8%) and most occurred in the inconsistency of titles between articles and references. 4. Foreign journals have much more errors than national ones concerning periodical publications. CONCLUSION: Correct citation and marking of references can be achieved through strict reviewing process by authors, editors, publishers and paper investigators. In consequence, it is expected that these processes can cause improvement of quality in impact factor and papers.
Humans ; Nursing Research ; Nursing* ; Publications ; Research Personnel

Attitude ; Humans ; Morals ; Research Personnel

The management for herniated lumbar disc has been improved steadily since the standard discectomy was introduced at the early stage of this century. The therapeutic use of standard discetomy has been critisized by some investigators because of its incasiveness and potential postoperative sequele. Recently various non-invasive mean were developed, however there are still some disadvantages with them such as high cost and thire limitation of disc removal. In the present study fifty-nine cases managed with microsurgical discetomy were presented, all performed by one surgeon and analysed by the other. The operative results, assessed 6 months postoperatively, showed that the microdiscecetomy was of good quality, comparable to the results of the standard discectomy reported by others. Patients have discharged early(less than 10 days) and returned to their usual activities quickly(less than 3 weeks). The advantage of this technique is its capacity to preserve better integrity of normal tissue and to impose less trauma on the body. Furthermore it may be more cost-effective than any other surgical managements available. It can be concluded that microsurgical discectomy represents one of the best refinements of standard discectomy even if it has also some negative points.
Diskectomy ; Humans ; Microsurgery* ; Research Personnel

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Several investigators have developed word lists for Korean speech audiometry. Many variations of the lists were identified in previous survey. A committee was organized to develop standard word lists for Korean speech audiometry. In this study, we propose new monosyllabic and bisyllabic word lists, whose performances can be compared with those of previous word lists, verified in clinical situations, and revised in future with proper reasons. We also report why some compromises have been made in the words number and the phoneme frequencies of the new monosyllabic word lists. There was no compromise in those of the new bisyllabic word list. MATERIALS AND METHOD: The target frequencies of new lists were determined by the previous references. In the Korean dictionary, 410 familiar monosyllabic words were available for the lists. These words were arranged in a matrix of initial consonants and vowels to meet the phonetic balance condition. RESULTS: Two monosyllabic word lists were developed with abovementioned compromises for the lack of monosyllabic words with final consonants. One bisyllabic word list could be made without compromise. CONCLUSION: The arrangement method in this report has some advantages in diversifying syllable distribution and satisfying the phonetic balance condition. The new monosyllabic and bisyllabic word lists have been designated with identification codes 'KsoM-07' and 'KsoB-07', respectively.
Audiometry, Speech ; Humans ; Research Personnel