Long-term health effects of exercise for the elderly: study protocol Each day this week we’ve been looking at a published paper from 2015 that sparked the interest of one of our staff editors. Our fourth pick is a study protocol for a randomised controlled trial of exercise training in an elderly population. BMJ Open supports […]
Category: Uncategorized
Editors’ Picks 2015: Part Three
Combating Dissemination Bias in Clinical Research: Recommendations Tip of the iceberg: Dissemination bias includes publication bias, where published papers that are exposed to readers are biased in favour of particular characteristics (e.g. positive findings). Papers with other characteristics (e.g. negative findings) are not published and, as a result, remain out of view from readers. […]
Editors’ Picks 2015: Part Two
Clinical Trial Transparency: disclosures for new drugs below ethical and legal standards In December we surveyed our staff editors, who oversee and manage the peer review process, to tell us about their favourite articles from 2015. Part 2 looks at clinical trial transparency for new drugs. The ability of medical and healthcare professionals to select […]
Editors’ Picks 2015: Part One
2015 was another exciting year for BMJ Open, with over 1500 articles published. Since launching in 2011, we have published over 4000 articles, and we look forward to February, when the journal will celebrate its fifth anniversary. In December we surveyed our staff editors, who oversee and manage the peer review process, to tell us about […]
BMJ launches new Chinese publishing portal: Q&A with David Wang and Huili Chen
Recently BMJ launched a publishing portal intended to help Chinese authors publish in BMJ’s portfolio of more than 60 journals, including BMJ Open. To help understand the motivations surrounding the portal, along with some of its content, we asked BMJ China’s Business Development Manager Huili Chen and the Deputy Editor of BMJ’s new journal Stroke […]
OA Journals and Wikipedia: Open for collaboration
The theme of this year’s Open Access week is Open for Collaboration, with the aim of highlighting “the ways in which collaboration both inspires and advances the Open Access movement”. Recently BMJ Open published an article by Samy Azer and colleagues investigating whether articles in Wikipedia relating to cardiovascular disease were accurate enough to function as a suitable learning […]
Peer Review Week: An analysis of peer review style and quality
This week celebrates the first ever Peer Review Week; a collaborative concept from ORCID, Wiley, Sense About Science and ScienceOpen, to highlight and celebrate the invaluable role peer review plays in scientific and medical publishing. Here at BMJ Open we are, of course, advocates of open peer review and as such are pleased to be publishing […]
Introducing ‘How to write and publish a Study Protocol’ using BMJ’s new eLearning programme: Research to Publication
Study protocols are an integral part of medical research. They provide a documented record of a researcher’s plan of action, detailing in advance a study’s rationale, methodology and analyses. Publication of study protocols ensures greater transparency in the research process and protects the wider community against a number of damaging research practices. These include the […]
Depression and personality disorders most common diagnoses in psychiatric patients requesting euthanasia
Most common diagnoses among those requesting help to die, due to unbearable suffering Depression and personality disorders are the most common diagnoses among Belgian psychiatric patients requesting help to die, on the grounds of unbearable suffering, finds research published in BMJ Open today. Drugs, given either by mouth or administered intravenously, are used to perform euthanasia […]
Should we stop talking about ‘negative’ results?
BMJ Open recently published the results of a major EU-funded project (OPEN) investigating the problem of dissemination bias. Also know as publication bias, this is the distortion of the evidence base caused by selective or non-reporting of results. The authors concluded: ‘Despite various recent examples of dissemination bias and several initiatives to reduce it, […]