Level of evidence of clinical orthopedic surgery research in Saudi Arabia
Bibliographic record
Abstract
OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the level of evidence (LOE) of Saudi clinical orthopedic research. METHODS: In July 2012, a list of Saudi orthopedic surgeons (N=93) affiliated with all major universities and hospitals in Saudi Arabia were obtained. PubMed and Embase searches were performed for all eligible studies over the last 2 decades (August 1991 to May 2012). The Oxford LOE scale was utilized to determine the LOE of these studies (Level V studies were excluded). The LOE trends were compared between the last 2 decades. In addition, the LOE of Saudi orthopedic studies was compared with North American studies. RESULTS: Of 251 articles, 159 met the inclusion criteria for the LOE evaluation. Most of the published studies are Level IV (86%). The average level of evidence was 3.75. There was no statistically significant difference when we compared the LOE trend between the last 2 decades. North American studies contained higher proportions of high-level studies when compared to Saudi studies (p<0.05). CONCLUSION: Most of the published studies are low LOE. Academic staff, institutions, and training programs are required to develop research strategies to improve orthopedic research quality in Saudi Arabia.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.026 | 0.140 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.004 | 0.005 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.011 | 0.009 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.007 | 0.004 |
| Open science | 0.004 | 0.003 |
| Research integrity | 0.006 | 0.003 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.028 | 0.004 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".