Level of Evidence in Spine Compared to Other Orthopedic Journals
Bibliographic record
Abstract
In Brief Study Design. Two reviewers rated the 112 clinical articles, from January through June 2003, published in Spine using a level-of-evidence grading system. The ratings were compared to previously published ratings of 2 orthopedic journals with similar impact factors. Objective. To compare Spine to other orthopedic journals using a level-of-evidence rating system. Summary of Background Data. A previous study evaluating the levels of evidence in 9 orthopedic journals found a correlation between higher-level studies and journal impact factor. Spine was not included in the analysis. Methods. Studies were designated therapeutic, prognostic, diagnostic, or economic, and their evidence rated as level I, II, III, or IV. Reviewers were blinded to the other’s ratings. Results. Ratings were as follows: 43.8% of the Spine articles were therapeutic, 37.5% prognostic, 17.9% diagnostic, and 0.9% economic. Of studies, 16.1% were level I, 22.3% level II, 8.0% level III, and 53.6% level IV. Kappa values for interobserver reliability showed good correlation between reviewers. There was no significant difference among Spine and 2 leading orthopedic journals in their likelihood of publishing level I or II studies. Conclusion. Spine publishes clinical studies with levels of evidence comparable to the 2 orthopedic journals with similar impact factors. We reviewed all clinical articles published from January through June 2003 in Spine, rating each for study type and level of evidence. We then compared these to previously published article ratings of the 2 US orthopedic journals with similar impact factors from the same time period.
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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 | 0.053 | 0.300 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.008 | 0.006 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.011 | 0.014 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.007 | 0.004 |
| Open science | 0.004 | 0.004 |
| Research integrity | 0.006 | 0.004 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.046 | 0.007 |
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".