Top 10 most read in October: Physician-pharmaceutical industry interactions, systematic reviews and unpublished data, and polypharmacy and falls in older adults

 

Four new entries, and two re-entries, made it into BMJ Open’s top 10 most read articles in October. Climbing back into the top position is a longitudinal cohort study by Xie et al., which examines the association between Proton Pump Inhibitors and the risk of all-cause mortality.

New in at number five is a systematic review by Fickweiler et al., exploring whether physicians’ interactions with pharmaceutical industry representatives impact on their attitude and prescribing habits. The researchers extracted and synthesised data from studies encompassing an assortment of study designs; they demonstrate that interactions with pharmaceutical industry representatives affect physicians’ prescribing behaviour and may compromise their objectivity.

At number six is a new entry by Ziai et al. The researchers audited a selection of systematic reviews published in 2013 and examined the proportion that included unpublished data in the analysis and assessed for publication bias. The results demonstrate that 36% of systematic reviews did not search for unpublished data and that publication bias was present in 40% of the published systematic reviews that assessed for it.

Dhalwani et al. are new in at number eight. Using data from The English Longitudinal Study of Ageing the researchers examine the association between polypharmacy and falls in older adults. The rate of falls was found to be 21% higher in people with polypharmacy (five or more drugs) than those without. The final new entry for October is at number 9; Firmino-Machado et al. report the protocol for an ongoing population-based randomised controlled trial to improve Cervical Cancer Screening Adherence.

 

Rank	Author(s)	Title
1	Xie et al.	Risk of death among users of Proton Pump Inhibitors: a longitudinal observational cohort study of United States veterans
2	Graham et al.	What factors are associated with reporting lacking interest in sex and how do these vary by gender? Findings from the third British national survey of sexual attitudes and lifestyles
3	Mamluk et al.	Low alcohol consumption and pregnancy and childhood outcomes: time to change guidelines indicating apparently ‘safe levels of alcohol during pregnancy? A systematic review and meta-analyses
4	Diniz et al.	Breast cancer mortality and associated factors in Sao Paulo State, Brazil: an ecological analysis
5	Fickweiler et al.	Interactions between physicians and the pharmaceutical industry generally and sales representatives specifically and their association with physicians attitudes and prescribing habits: a systematic review
6	Ziai et al.	Search for unpublished data by systematic reviewers: an audit
7	Kennedy et al.	Coffee, including caffeinated and decaffeinated coffee, and the risk of hepatocellular carcinoma: a systematic review and dose-response meta-analysis
8	Dhalwani et al.	Association between polypharmacy and falls in older adults: a longitudinal study from England
9	Firmino-Machado et al.	Stepwise strategy to improve Cervical Cancer Screening Adherence (SCAN-CC): automated text messages, phone calls and face-to-face interviews: protocol of a population-based randomised controlled trial
10	Nickel et al.	Words do matter: a systematic review on how different terminology for the same condition influences management preferences

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