User's guide to the chiropractic literature-1a: how to use an article about therapy
Bibliographic record
Abstract
The recent paper by Busse et al1Busse J. Guyatt G. Bhandari M. Cassidy J. User's guide to the chiropractic literature-IA how to use an article about therapy.J Manipulative Physiol Ther. 2003; 26: 330-337Abstract Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (4) Google Scholar demonstrated how PubMed could be used to search the published literature as the first step in answering a clinical question. I would like to suggest an alternate database that may have some advantages over PubMed. My letter should not be seen as a criticism of the excellent paper by Busse et al.1Busse J. Guyatt G. Bhandari M. Cassidy J. User's guide to the chiropractic literature-IA how to use an article about therapy.J Manipulative Physiol Ther. 2003; 26: 330-337Abstract Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (4) Google Scholar The series on evidence-based practice is a great initiative, and I am looking forward to reading the next installment. The Physiotherapy Evidence Database, or PEDro, contains clinical practice guidelines, systematic reviews, and randomized controlled trials (RCT) evaluating physiotherapy treatments. As many treatments are administered by both chiropractors and physiotherapists, the database contains evidence relevant to both professions. The URL is http://www.pedro.fhs.usyd.edu.au/. PEDro has a number of advantages over PubMed when searching for literature to answer a chiropractic clinical question. Unlike PubMed, there are no indexing restrictions and, for example, includes articles from the following chiropractic journals that are not found on PubMed: ICA International Review of Chiropractic, Chiropractic Technique, Journal of the Canadian Chiropractic Association, and American Journal of Chiropractic Medicine. As well, PubMed's earliest record is 1966, whereas PEDro has no date restriction and, for example, archives a 1929 RCT.2Colebrook D. Irradiation and health. A. Ultra-violet irradiation of school children. Medical Research Council; 1929. Special Report Series No. 131. p. 1-47Google Scholar Additionally, the database is restricted to higher levels of evidence on therapies, evidence-based clinical practice guidelines, systematic reviews, and RCTs, whereas PubMed includes case studies and nonrandomized studies. Lastly, most RCTs on the database have been rated for quality to help users quickly discriminate between trials that are likely to be valid and interpretable and those that are not. Trials on PEDro are rated with the PEDro scale,3Maher C, Sherrington C, Herbert R, Moseley A, Elkins M. Reliability of the PEDro scale for rating quality of randomized controlled trials. Phys Ther 2003;83:713-21Google Scholar with information provided on whether each of the 11 quality items is satisfied. Because there are PEDro scale items corresponding to the 6 questions suggested by Busse et al1Busse J. Guyatt G. Bhandari M. Cassidy J. User's guide to the chiropractic literature-IA how to use an article about therapy.J Manipulative Physiol Ther. 2003; 26: 330-337Abstract Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (4) Google Scholar as important in assessing trial validity, the PEDro database provides useful information to assist critical appraisal of an RCT (Table 1). This last feature is probably unique to the PEDro database.Table 1%Validity questionsValidity question suggested by Busse and colleaguesPEDro itemWere the patients randomized?2Was randomization concealed?3Were all patients analyzed in the groups to which they were randomized?9Were patients in the treatment and control groups similar with respect to known prognostic factors?4Were patients, clinicians, or outcome assessors aware of group allocation?5, 6, 7Was follow-up complete?8 Open table in a new tab The PEDro scale is meant to assist but not replace critical appraisal of the internal validity of a study. As well, the PEDro scale does not address the last 2 important questions posed by Busse et al1Busse J. Guyatt G. Bhandari M. Cassidy J. User's guide to the chiropractic literature-IA how to use an article about therapy.J Manipulative Physiol Ther. 2003; 26: 330-337Abstract Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (4) Google Scholar: How large was the treatment effect? and Can the results be applied to my patients? These last 2 questions are, of course, best answered by the individual practitioner in consultation with their patient. In responseJournal of Manipulative & Physiological TherapeuticsVol. 27Issue 1Preview Full-Text PDF
Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.
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 | 0.011 | 0.109 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.003 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.006 | 0.004 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.025 | 0.021 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.010 | 0.015 |
| Open science | 0.005 | 0.009 |
| Research integrity | 0.007 | 0.006 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.582 | 0.528 |
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".