PharmD Info

A forum for Indian Pharmacy Professionals

Model PharmD project works, research topic ideas, and tips, PCI guidelines for Pharm D project and etc.
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#4047
poojitha wrote: 19 Apr 2020, 14:27 How to differentiate a systematic review from narrative review?
Systematic reviews have the strength of authority over narrative review in the field of evidence-based medicine. Hence, for a reader to be able to come to a conclusion based on a review, it is important to understand this basic but vital difference.

Systematic reviews systematically summarize or statistically combine the currently available knowledge. They are to be done as any other research study with a detailed protocol and eligibility criteria defined a-priori (before the systematic review is conducted).

Systematic reviews often concentrate on narrow and specific clinical questions but in-depth, has a comprehensive source of information, criteria-based selection and a critical appraisal and synthesis of the evidence. But on the other hand, narrative reviews usually address a wide range of questions, cites the literature specifically and provides a qualitative summary.

Mainly, systematic review only summarizes the evidence, but narrative reviews generally mix evidence with opinion.
#4048
Ajay Samraj wrote: 17 Apr 2020, 16:28 What are the challenges we have to face during the publication of our research?
There are many challenges which starts from finding a suitable journal till the publication of paper. Initially, you should choose a good quality journal which is apt for your research work. Most of the time, we researchers fails in this step itself. You can use many journal finders such as https://journalfinder.elsevier.com/ where you can find a suitable journal under Elsevier. Secondly, look to their scope, type of papers they accept, open access policy, rejection/accepting rate, then come to the preparation of manuscript.

Once you find a suitable, you need to re-write the manuscript according to the journal's author instruction which will vary journal to journal. It is must to follow their instruction while preparing the manuscript. Take care of plagiarism and format of reference very carefully.

Once you prepare the manuscript, submit it carefully, without loosing any data pertaining to the research and field of submission. Then fingers crossed ;-)

Once the paper came for revision, revise it very carefully, give justification to each and every comment in a very polite way which should be justifiable to the reviewer. Then submit, again fingers crossed :-)

In a wrap of few words: Finding a suitable journal, Good quality English, Grammer, Plagiarism, Statistical analysis, Style of writing is the major challenges during the publication of a research work.
#4049
narayana.reddy wrote: 20 Apr 2020, 08:22
Kamal Rathinam wrote: 19 Apr 2020, 13:50 How do I choose a proper journal to publish our research paper?
Every publisher (Elsevier, Wi;ey, Springer etc.,) have their own web domain to search proper journal of your interest. Just type "journal finder" in google, then you can see all journal finder web pages of respective publishers
The selection of a journal entirely depends upon the topic of our work. One best way to find a suitable journal for our work is, look into the journals where our reference articles got published. As our references will be similar to our topic, journals of those references will best suite for our article also.
#4050
Akshitha Rani Siby wrote: 17 Apr 2020, 16:23 How can we assure the quality of data that has been collected by the students for their project?
@Akshitha Rani Siby

Hi Akshitha,

I am glad that someone asked such type of question, which shows the extent and the way that our Indian Pharm.D is thinking and transitioning for a better tomorrow.

To be honest, it's not fully possible to assess the quality of the data that is being collected by the students for their projects. However, there are certain things to be done in this regard.

First and foremost, I believe, rather than bothering about the data quality once after it is collected, actions should be taken before, while and after the data collection, in order to acquire the most reliable data.

Let me try to give you an overview. From my understanding, we can deal with this in three phases:

1. Pre-data collection: This phase involves before even data collection begins. At this stage, student researchers could be well-trained on the best practices and things to be avoided while collecting the data, as training could eventually lead to the best results.

2. On-going/during data collection: During the data collection phase, frequent meetings, continuous interactions, real-time communication, active monitoring, oversightness and feedback would significantly attribute to the enhanced data quality.

3. Post-data collection: During this phase, cross-validation, random auditing, and checking for the missing data would potentially help in assessing the data quality.

Hope this helps.
#4051
ShriSanghavi wrote: 18 Apr 2020, 12:27 How can a student approach for meta analysis which involves statistical methods for interpretation?
The weight of evidence produced by a meta-analysis is highly significant as it may potentially lead to a timely introduction of effective treatment. Given this advantage, the process increases the complexity of conducting a meta-analysis.

The main consideration that should be kept in mind is to decide on conducting whether to conduct a meta-analysis at the time of planning itself. Enthusiastic beginner researchers sometime get tempted to perform a meta-analysis after data extraction, but that in-turn reduces the validity of the study.

The protocol itself should outline the meta-analysis method, the test for heterogeneity and subgroup analyses, if any. Once the protocol is set, the analysis should adhere to the protocol.

Another criterion to be considered while undertaking a meta-analysis is heterogeneity detection. The analysis summarizes different studies having different characteristics and hence there is a risk of ‘mixed apples and oranges.’ Patient characteristics, disease condition, enrollment criteria, intervention, and outcome assessments are diverse across studies. To tackle this, clinical common sense and a critical appraisal of the raw data helps to identify heterogeneity between studies.

Additionally, careful considerations should be given to conducting a subgroup analysis. It will be tempting to perform subgroup analysis to explain the heterogeneity. But performing various subgroup analyses will induce the probability of ‘chance’ and thus reducing the reliability of the results.
#4052
S. Manoj Kumar wrote: 17 Apr 2020, 17:15 What kind of database can be used for the health outcome research ?
Any database with the relevant information for the study can be used for health outcomes research. The information on the exposure/intervention and outcome/consequence is very important for health outcomes research. The databases contain information on these aspects can be used for health outcomes research. Generally, the claims database and hospital database are commonly used for health outcomes research.
#4053
ShriSanghavi wrote: 18 Apr 2020, 12:16 How to figure out the bias (if any)in the selected article which is to be involved in the systematic review?
There are many tools available for assessing the RoB. These are the some examples.

RCTs: Cochrane RoB assessment tool, Modified Jadad or Jadad/Oxford scale, PEDRO scale, CASP Randomised Controlled Trial Checklist etc.,

Observational Studies: New Castle Ottawa, ROBINS tool, Downs and Black checklist etc.,

Descriptive studies: Scale by Murad et al., 2018 (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29420178)

Diagnostic studies: Quality Assessment of Diagnostic Accuracy Studies (QUADAS) and QUADAS-2

Economic evaluations: Consolidated Health Economic Evaluation Reporting Standards (CHEERS)

Genetic studies: Q-giene tool

Systematic reviews: risk of bias in systematic reviews (ROBIS),
#4055
mahima m wrote: 18 Apr 2020, 14:48 In routine practice, how do we know which pharmaceutical agent is more efficacious ? Is it just check graded dose response curve or side effects also?? Should we check that time it self cost effectiveness of drug also??
It depends on the outcome which you are looking for. It can be clinical benefit, survival benefit, risk, benefit to risk ratio, utility outcome such as HRQoL etc.,

In cancer patients, survival benefit outweigh the risk such as mild ADRs, so we will neglect those AEs, however, needs to be considered if the AE is severe or life threatening. Whereas, in pregnancy category studies, we mostly look risk to benefit ratio.

So, basically depends on the outcome in which patients we are treating.

Cost effectiveness will be considered when there is a need. In routine practice, we don't use it majorly for research. Sometimes, use for decision making.
#4056
Admin wrote: 15 Apr 2020, 13:56 Why we should use only the licensed statistical software's for data analysis?
@Admin

As per my understanding, licensing softwares like SPSS, NONMEM -PAGIN provide various training and workshops to the students and researchers for doing their statistical work. This will be more supportive for the beginners.

If you preferred to go with licensed software like SPSS and NONMEM means that should be a licensed one because copyright issues may raise when the time you publish your works.
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