Access to Information ; Biomedical Research ; Editorial Policies ; Ethics, Research ; Humans ; Internet ; Journal Impact Factor ; Open Access Publishing ; Peer Review ; Periodicals as Topic ; Singapore

The Open Access Initiative is gaining momentum due to the worldwide availability of advanced digital tools, online publishing platforms, and systems for tracking academic contributions. Several declarations and initiatives, including Plan S, have already laid a foundation for moving away from subscription to full and immediate open-access publishing. The global initiatives imply targeting journals satisfying the upgraded quality and visibility criteria. To meet these criteria, a comprehensive approach to Open Access is recommended. This article overviews the essential components of the comprehensive approach, increasing transparency, adherence to ethical standards, and diversification of evaluation metrics. With the increasing volume of quality open-access journals, their indexing with free databases and search engines is becoming increasingly important. The Directory of Open Access Journals and PubMed Central currently free searches of open-access sources. These services, however, cannot fully satisfy the increasing demands of the users, and attempts are underway to upgrade the indexing and archiving of open-access sources in China, Japan, Korea, Russia, and elsewhere. The wide use of identifiers is essential for transparency of scholarly communications. Peer reviewers are now offered credits from Publons. These credits are transferrable to their Open Researcher and Contributor iDs. Various social media channels are increasingly used by scholars to comment on articles. All these comments are tracked by related metric systems, such as Altmetrics. Combined with traditional citation evaluations, the alternative metrics can help timely identify and promote publications influencing education, research, and practice.
Abstracting and Indexing as Topic ; Access to Information ; Bibliography as Topic ; China ; Education ; Japan ; Korea ; Metric System ; Open Access Publishing ; Peer Review ; Periodicals as Topic ; Russia ; Search Engine ; Social Media

No abstract available.
Publishing ; Access to Information ; Social Media ; Congresses as Topic ; Periodicals as Topic ; Biomedical Research ; Journal Impact Factor

OBJECTIVES: A citation analysis of biomedical and health sciences journals was conducted based on their enlistment in journal databases to identify the factors contributing to the citation metrics. METHODS: Among the 1,219 academic journals managed by the National Center for Medical Information and Knowledge at the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 556 journals were included for analysis as of July 2016. The characteristics of the journals include history years, publication media, language, open-access policy as well as the status enlisted in international and domestic databases, such as Science Citation Index (SCI), Scopus, Medline, PubMed Central, Embase, and Korea Citation Index (KCI). Six bibliometric measures were collected from SCI, Scopus, and KCI as of 2015, the most recent disclosure year. Analyses of group differences and influential factors were conducted using t-tests, Mann-Whitney tests, and multiple regression. RESULTS: Journal characteristics, such as history years, publication media, and open-access policy, were not significant factors influencing global or domestical citation of the journals. However, global citations were higher for SCI and Medline enlisted journals than for their counterparts. Among KCI journals, the KCI impact factors of journals published in English only were lower. CONCLUSIONS: Efforts by journals to be enlisted in international databases, especially in SCI and Medline, are critical to enhance their global circulation. However, articles published in English only hinder the use of domestic researchers. Different strategies are required for enhancing international and domestic readerships.
Access to Information ; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (U.S.) ; Disclosure ; Journal Impact Factor ; Korea* ; Medical Subject Headings ; Publications ; Regression Analysis ; Republic of Korea

OBJECTIVES: Complex and diverse factors are related to reproductive health (RH) behavior among adolescents according to the social and cultural context of each countries. This study examined the prevalence of active RH and factors related to active RH behavior among Indonesian adolescents. METHODS: A cross-sectional study was conducted among 1,040 of students who were selected through a multi-stage random sampling technique. A self-administered questionnaire was developed, including the World Health Organization Illustrative Questionnaire for Interview-Surveys with Young People, pubertal development scale, and sexual activity scale, modified in accordance to the Indonesian context. The data were analyzed using descriptive and comparative statistics, as well as logistic regression analyses. RESULTS: The prevalence of active RH behavior were more higher in boys (56.6%; 95% confidence interval [CI], 50.6% to 62.6%) than in girls (43.7%; 95% CI, 37.6% to 49.8%). Negative attitudes towards RH were a factor related to active RH behavior in both boys and girls. Smoking and kind relationship envisioned before marriage (pacaran [courtship] and nikah siri [non-registered marriage]) were factors related to active RH behavior in boys; whereas the absence of access to information on substance abuse was an additional factor in girls. Moreover, an interaction was found between access to information on development and smoking (boys) and attitudes on RH (girls) as independent variables associated with active RH behavior. CONCLUSIONS: Sex education for adolescents in Indonesia, particularly in the context of a health promotion program, should be developed based on prevalent social, cultural, and religious values to prevent active RH behavior. Such programs should focus on the kind of relationship envisioned before marriage and smoking for boys and access to information on subtance abuse for girls.
Access to Information ; Adolescent Behavior ; Adolescent* ; Cross-Sectional Studies* ; Female ; Health Promotion ; Humans ; Indonesia ; Logistic Models ; Marriage ; Prevalence* ; Reproductive Health* ; Sex Education ; Sexual Behavior ; Smoke ; Smoking ; Substance-Related Disorders ; World Health Organization

BACKGROUND/AIMS: This study aims to verify the internationalization of Clinical Endoscopy based on journal metrics after the change to English-only in 2011. The results of this study serve as a starting point for developing strategies to develop Clinical Endoscopy into a top-tier international journal. METHODS: The following journal metrics were analyzed from the journal's homepage or the Web of Science: the number of citable articles, number of countries of affiliation of the contributors, the number of articles supported by research grants, total citations, impact factor, citing journals, countries of citing authors, and the Hirsch index. RESULTS: The number of citable articles in 2011, 2012, 2013, and 2014 was 22, 81, 120, and 95, respectively. The authors were from 11 countries. Twenty-one out of 55 original articles were supported by research grants. The total citations in 2012, 2013, and 2014 were 2, 85, and 213, respectively. The impact factor was 0.670 in 2013 and 0.940 in 2014. The number of countries citing authors were from was 61. The Hirsch index was 6. CONCLUSIONS: The above results demonstrate that Clinical Endoscopy became an international journal, contributing to the propagation of valuable research results through an open access publishing model.
Access to Information ; Endoscopy* ; Financing, Organized ; Journal Impact Factor

OBJECTIVES: The Korean government has enacted two laws, namely, the Personal Information Protection Act and the Bioethics and Safety Act to prevent the unauthorized use of medical information. To protect patients' privacy by complying with governmental regulations and improve the convenience of research, Asan Medical Center has been developing a de-identification system for biomedical research. METHODS: We reviewed Korean regulations to define the scope of the de-identification methods and well-known previous biomedical research platforms to extract the functionalities of the systems. Based on these review results, we implemented necessary programs based on the Asan Medical Center Information System framework which was built using the Microsoft. NET Framework and C#. RESULTS: The developed de-identification system comprises three main components: a de-identification tool, a search tool, and a chart review tool. The de-identification tool can substitute a randomly assigned research ID for a hospital patient ID, remove the identifiers in the structured format, and mask them in the unstructured format, i.e., texts. This tool achieved 98.14% precision and 97.39% recall for 6,520 clinical notes. The search tool can find the number of patients which satisfies given search criteria. The chart review tool can provide de-identified patient's clinical data for review purposes. CONCLUSIONS: We found that a clinical data warehouse was essential for successful implementation of the de-identification system, and this system should be tightly linked to an electronic Institutional Review Board system for easy operation of honest brokers. Additionally, we found that a secure cloud environment could be adopted to protect patients' privacy more thoroughly.
Access to Information ; Bioethics ; Computer Security ; Electronics ; Electrons ; Ethics Committees, Research ; Ethics, Research ; Humans ; Information Systems ; Jurisprudence ; Masks ; Privacy ; Research Design ; Social Control, Formal ; Tertiary Care Centers

INTRODUCTIONBell's palsy is a well-recognised disease with robust research on its possible aetiologies and epidemiology, but scant information on patients' concerns and concepts regarding the condition is available. We aimed to evaluate the ideas, concerns and expectations of patients with Bell's palsy in Singapore.

METHODSA cross-sectional study was conducted at a single tertiary-care hospital in Singapore. Participants were all patients with newly diagnosed Bell's palsy referred to the otolaryngology department either from the emergency department or by general practitioners. Participants were given a self-administered questionnaire and their facial nerve palsies were graded by the consultant doctor.

RESULTSA total of 52 patients were recruited, of which 41 were available for analysis. 78.0% of patients were concerned that they were having a stroke upon presentation of the symptoms. Other beliefs about the cause of the disease included overwork or stress (36.6%), something that the patient had eaten (9.8%) and supernatural forces (2.4%). About 50% of patients had tried some form of complementary or alternative therapy other than the steroids/medicines prescribed by their general practitioner or emergency physician. While 39.0% of patients agreed that the Internet had helped them understand more about their condition in addition to the information provided by the physician, 9.8% of them specifically disagreed with this statement.

CONCLUSIONWe have found that patients with Bell's palsy in Singapore are not very knowledgeable about the disease. Although the Internet is a useful resource, a physician's explanation of the disease and its natural progression remains of utmost importance.

Access to Information ; Bell Palsy ; diagnosis ; epidemiology ; psychology ; therapy ; Complementary Therapies ; Cross-Sectional Studies ; Facial Nerve ; physiopathology ; Facial Paralysis ; complications ; therapy ; Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice ; Health Literacy ; Humans ; Internet ; Patient Education as Topic ; Singapore ; Surveys and Questionnaires

PURPOSE: This study investigated the compliance of the general public to the guidance conveyed by hospital emergency medical information centers. METHODS: This study included the incidences of inquiry on hospitals and clinics to Busan Emergency Medical Information Center by the general public for a 2-week period from January 4-17, 2009. Information obtained included general characteristics, time of hospital arrival and departure, length of hospitalization, hospitals visited, and treatment outcome. RESULTS: A total of 939 incidences of hospital guidance to the general public were examined. The degree of compliance was 71.2%, the ratio of the primary and secondary facility that the participants visited were 88.6% and 93.5% of the participants in this study were discharged from hospitals after their visit. Patients who complied with the information received displayed a shorter period of hospitalization than non-compliant patients. CONCLUSION: Emergency medical information centers may help ease the unnecessary use of emergency rooms by providing information on diseases to the general public and effectively distributing medical resources with guidance to proper hospitals according to the degree of symptoms.
Access to Information ; Compliance ; Emergencies ; Emergency Medical Services ; Hospitalization ; Humans ; Incidence ; Information Centers

PURPOSE: This study investigated the compliance of the general public to the guidance conveyed by hospital emergency medical information centers. METHODS: This study included the incidences of inquiry on hospitals and clinics to Busan Emergency Medical Information Center by the general public for a 2-week period from January 4-17, 2009. Information obtained included general characteristics, time of hospital arrival and departure, length of hospitalization, hospitals visited, and treatment outcome. RESULTS: A total of 939 incidences of hospital guidance to the general public were examined. The degree of compliance was 71.2%, the ratio of the primary and secondary facility that the participants visited were 88.6% and 93.5% of the participants in this study were discharged from hospitals after their visit. Patients who complied with the information received displayed a shorter period of hospitalization than non-compliant patients. CONCLUSION: Emergency medical information centers may help ease the unnecessary use of emergency rooms by providing information on diseases to the general public and effectively distributing medical resources with guidance to proper hospitals according to the degree of symptoms.
Access to Information ; Compliance ; Emergencies ; Emergency Medical Services ; Hospitalization ; Humans ; Incidence ; Information Centers