Overdreven gezondheidsnieuws. Relatie tussen overdrijving in academische persberichten en in nieuwsmedia

Objective: To determine how often press releases and news articles contain exaggeration and to locate its origin in the trajectory from research paper to news article. Design: Retrospective quantitative content analysis Method: Sample used consists of press releases on biomedical research, published by  15 Dutch universities and university medical centers in 2015 (N=129), and associated news articles (N=185) and peer reviewed research papers. Quantitative content analysis was performed using Rstudio. Results: 20% of press releases and 29% of news articles contain exaggeration of conclusion of causal claim. Explicit health advice was, when present, exaggerated in 7% of press releases and 10% of news articles. When the press releases contained an exaggeration of conclusion of causal claim, 92% of associated news articles was exaggerated as well (N=34). When the conclusion or causal claim in press releases was not exaggerated, 6% of associated news articles contained exaggeration (N=6). The relative chance of exaggeration in news is 16.1 when the associated press release is exaggerated. Additionally we found that exaggerated press releases have a higher number of associated news articles. The relative chance of news uptake for exaggerated press releases compared with non-exaggerated press releases is 1.45 (1,02-2,04). Conclusion: Exaggeration of health related news is strongly associated with exaggeration in the associated press release and occurs in more than 1 in 5 articles. Monitoring and, if necessary, improving the accuracy of academic press releases are likely to be important measures to improve the quality of health news. Science Communication and Societ

Treatment preferences for medication or surgery in patients with deep endometriosis and bowel involvement: a discrete choice experiment

Objective To study the preferences of women with deep endometriosis (DE) with bowel involvement when they have to choose between conservative (medication) or surgical treatment. Design Labelled discrete choice experiment (DCE). Setting Dutch academic and non-academic hospitals and online recruitment. Population or Sample A total of 169 women diagnosed with DE of the bowel. Methods Baseline characteristics and the fear of surgery were collected. Women were asked to rank attributes and choose between hypothetical conservative or surgical treatment in different choice sets (scenarios). Each choice set offered different levels of all treatment attributes. Data were analysed by using multinomial logistic regression. Main Outcome Measures The following attributes - effect on/risk of pain, fatigue, pregnancy, endometriosis lesions, mood swings, osteoporosis, temporary stoma and permanent intestinal symptoms - were used in this DCE. Results In the ranking, osteoporosis was ranked with low importance, whereas in the DCE, a lower chance of osteoporosis was one of the most important drivers when choosing a conservative treatment. Women with previous surgery showed less fear of surgery compared with women without surgery. Low anterior resection syndrome was almost equally important for patients as the chance of pain reduction. Pain reduction had higher importance than improving fertility chances, even in women with desire for a future child. Conclusions The risk of developing low anterior resection syndrome as a result of treatment is almost equally important as the reduction of pain symptoms. Women with previous surgery experience less fear of surgery compared with women without a surgical history. Tweetable Abstract First discrete choice experiment in patients with deep endometriosis.Gynecolog

A genome-wide gene-environment interaction study of breast cancer risk for women of European ancestry

Background Genome-wide studies of gene–environment interactions (G×E) may identify variants associated with disease risk in conjunction with lifestyle/environmental exposures. We conducted a genome-wide G×E analysis of ~ 7.6 million common variants and seven lifestyle/environmental risk factors for breast cancer risk overall and for estrogen receptor positive (ER +) breast cancer. Methods Analyses were conducted using 72,285 breast cancer cases and 80,354 controls of European ancestry from the Breast Cancer Association Consortium. Gene–environment interactions were evaluated using standard unconditional logistic regression models and likelihood ratio tests for breast cancer risk overall and for ER + breast cancer. Bayesian False Discovery Probability was employed to assess the noteworthiness of each SNP-risk factor pairs. Results Assuming a 1 × 10–5 prior probability of a true association for each SNP-risk factor pairs and a Bayesian False Discovery Probability < 15%, we identified two independent SNP-risk factor pairs: rs80018847(9p13)-LINGO2 and adult height in association with overall breast cancer risk (ORint = 0.94, 95% CI 0.92–0.96), and rs4770552(13q12)-SPATA13 and age at menarche for ER + breast cancer risk (ORint = 0.91, 95% CI 0.88–0.94). Conclusions Overall, the contribution of G×E interactions to the heritability of breast cancer is very small. At the population level, multiplicative G×E interactions do not make an important contribution to risk prediction in breast cancer

Overdreven gezondheidsnieuws. Relatie tussen overdrijving in academische persberichten en in nieuwsmedia

Objective: To determine how often press releases and news articles contain exaggeration and to locate its origin in the trajectory from research paper to news article. Design: Retrospective quantitative content analysis Method: Sample used consists of press releases on biomedical research, published by  15 Dutch universities and university medical centers in 2015 (N=129), and associated news articles (N=185) and peer reviewed research papers. Quantitative content analysis was performed using Rstudio. Results: 20% of press releases and 29% of news articles contain exaggeration of conclusion of causal claim. Explicit health advice was, when present, exaggerated in 7% of press releases and 10% of news articles. When the press releases contained an exaggeration of conclusion of causal claim, 92% of associated news articles was exaggerated as well (N=34). When the conclusion or causal claim in press releases was not exaggerated, 6% of associated news articles contained exaggeration (N=6). The relative chance of exaggeration in news is 16.1 when the associated press release is exaggerated. Additionally we found that exaggerated press releases have a higher number of associated news articles. The relative chance of news uptake for exaggerated press releases compared with non-exaggerated press releases is 1.45 (1,02-2,04). Conclusion: Exaggeration of health related news is strongly associated with exaggeration in the associated press release and occurs in more than 1 in 5 articles. Monitoring and, if necessary, improving the accuracy of academic press releases are likely to be important measures to improve the quality of health news. </p

Catalytic chain transfer mediated emulsion polymerization : compartmentalization and its effects on the molecular weight distribution

We present the first population balance calculations which encompass the complete molecular weight distribution (MWD) to discuss the implications of both radical and catalytic chain transfer agent (CCTA) compartmentalization in a catalytic chain transfer (CCT) mediated emulsion polymerization system. Compartmentalization effects are attributed to reduced frequencies of entry and exit of the CCTA (bis[(difluoroboryl)dimethylglyoximato]cobalt(II) or COBF). Two limiting scenarios were identified. In instances of fast CCTA entry and exit, monomodal MWDs are obtained governed by a global CCTA concentration. In instances of slow entry and exit, bimodal MWDs are obtained; one peak can be attributed to the generation of a bimolecular termination product produced in polymer particles devoid of CCTA, while a transfer-derived peak can be attributed to polymer particles containing one or more CCTA molecules. We present theoretical evidence that experimentally observed multimodal MWDs ( Macromolecules 2009, 42, 7332-7341) originate from a reduced mobility of the CCTA and that when viscosity is high in the polymer particles, compartmentalization of the CCTA becomes important

Medisch nieuws in de media

Retrospectieve kwantitatieve inhoudsanalyse van door Nederlandse universiteiten en universitaire medische centra in 2015 uitgebrachte persberichten over gezondheidsonderzoek (N=129) en de met die persberichten geassocieerde berichten in de nieuwsmedia (N=185). Met als doel te bepalen hoe vaak pers- en nieuwsberichten overdrijvingen bevatten en te onderzoeken waar in het traject tussen wetenschappelijke publicatie en krant deze overdrijving ontstaat. De dataset bevat een document met een beschrijving van de onderzoeksmethodes, het codeboek en codeersheet template, ingevulde codeersheets per wetenschappelijk artikel en de code in R die is gebruikt voor de analyse