Quality of reporting in dermatological literature

Project researcher: Dr James Kilgour, Academic Foundation Doctor

James was involved in a number of research projects during the two years of the AFP programme.

One piece of work was analysing the quality of methodology and reporting of research involving clinician surveys in the dermatological literature. This work involved systematically searching for all of the articles published in a five-year period in the top five dermatology journals which reported on a survey sent to clinicians. The team then analysed each article against a checklist that they had previously developed and found that across the board the quality of reporting was generally poor. They went on to publish this work in the British Journal of Dermatology, James as a co-first author, with recommendations for improved practice.

Another large project that James developed from conception through to completion was a systematic review of the use and psychometric properties of patient-reported outcome measures within the graft-versus-host-disease (GVHD) following allogenic stem cell transplant population. The team is now preparing the manuscript for publication and collaborating on this with European colleagues from the COST initiative.

Finally, James also conducted a primary qualitative study to investigate the quality of life of these patients with GVHD. He is continuing to work on the data analysis with the aim to publish in due course.

September 2019