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Update in Print and Digital Media Reviews: Not Your Father's Book Review Section
Commentaries, continued Update in Print and Digital Media Reviews: Not Your Father’s Book Review Section
T
he mission of GASTROENTEROLOPrint and Digital Media Reviews section is to keep readers apprised of information sources that they may want to obtain. Originally, this section was called Book Reviews, but the name changed in the late 1990s in response to the increasing amount of information disseminated in digital formats. Still, books provide a wonderful compendium that is unique, which is why they remain popular even in our current everexpanding multimedia world; reviews of printed books remain the most common. After an information source is identified, a reviewer with expertise in the area is solicited. We cannot thank these reviewers enough for their efforts. It may seem like quite the honor to be invited to provide a review, but we imagine that once a 600-page book arrives at their doorstep, some reviewers may have had second thoughts. Thankfully, none have backed out! The reviewers are provided uniform criteria on which to create their review. Reviews are necessarily subjective appraisals. However, in an effort to guide reviews toward standardized reporting of those appraisals, we recently initiated a star system for scoring books and other media on each of 4 criteria, GY’s
as well as an overall score using a 5-point Likert scale from 1 star (poor) to 5 stars (excellent). At this writing, the star system has been used in 34 book reviews (Figure 1). Our reviewers have given a rating of 4 stars (good) for the overall score in ⬎50% of books reviewed, but have given a much wider range of scores for the 4 individual criteria. When considering purchasing books or other media, we encourage you to use these scores, in addition to the full-text review, in your deliberation. One of the most frequently reported critiques in book reviews is that the information provided was already out of date by the time the book left the printing press, or that it will likely be out of date within a few years. In response, the Print and Digital Media Reviews section today is not your father’s book review section of yesteryear. Gary Lichtenstein, the previous editor of this section, began soliciting reviews of websites. Under his guidance, GASTROENTEROLOGY published a series of reviews of gastroenterology-related content published on physician-targeted websites. There was a series on UpToDate.com, featuring topics such as physiology/motility guidelines (Hirano I, et al. Gastroenterology 2008; 134:638 – 639), oncology (Terdiman P, et al. Gastroenterology 2008;134:363– 364), GI practice guidelines (McQuaid K. Gastroenterology 2007;133:2068), endoscopy/technology (Sherqill A, et al. Gastroenterology 2007;133:1739), liver practice guidelines (Ayoub W, et al. Gastroenterology 2007;133:1388 –
1389), and IBD chapters (Ullman T, et al. Gastroenterology 2008;134:891– 892). Also, 2 topics—IBD (Deshpande A, et al. Gastroenterology 2008;135: 1014 –1015) and heartburn (Wong R. Gastroenterology 2009;136:2404)—from WebMed.com were reviewed. Hopefully, you have already noticed that over the last year and a half we have begun soliciting reviews of websites with content oriented to patients suffering from common gastrointestinal or hepatic diseases or symptoms. Our intent is to have someone else sort through the plethora of websites that compete for your patients’ attention, enabling you to recommend 1 or 2 trusted websites to your patients with particular ailments. In each review, the reviewer has been asked to compare 6 – 8 specified websites on the same topic using uniform criteria. As of this writing, 5 reviews of topics covering 21 different websites have been completed, and more are planned. The first such patient-oriented website review was on esophageal diseases (Gerson L. Gastroenterology 2011; 141:2275–2276) in general, and after that we elected to focus the reviews more narrowly. Subsequent reviews have been on irritable bowel syndrome (Pimentel M. Gastroenterology 2012;142:1621–1622) hepatitis C (Strader D. Gastroenterology 2012; 143:1398 –1399) celiac disease (Murray J. Gastroenterology 2013;144: 246 –247) and inflammatory bowel disease (Velayos F. Gastroenterology 2013;144:248 –249).
Figure 1. Distribution of scores for book reviews. For each criterion, the distribution of scores is displayed in a box plot (based on reviews of 34 books). The whiskers represent the minimum and maximum scores, the edges of the boxes represent the 25th and 75th percentile scores, and the central hash (with arrowhead) represents the median score. Note that the median overlaps the 25th percentile at 4 stars for both coverage of relevant topics and for the overall score, and overlaps the 75th percentile for improvement over prior media. GASTROENTEROLOGY 2013;144:486 – 487
Commentaries, continued
Figure 2. Distribution of scores for patient-oriented website reviews. For each criterion, the distribution of scores is displayed in a box plot (based on reviews of 21 websites). The whiskers represent the minimum and maximum scores, the edges of the boxes represent the 25th and 75th percentile scores, and the central hash (with arrowhead) represents the median score. Note that the median overlaps with the 75th percentile at 4 stars for complications and ease of navigation, and overlaps with the 75th percentile at 3 stars for quality of images.
As with book reviews, reviewers are asked to rate each website on a number of standard criteria using a 5-point Likert scale. Our reviewers reported substantial variation in the quality of those websites (Figure 2). On average, these patient-oriented websites are best at describing symptoms and treatment, but fare more poorly at providing a differential diagnosis, high-quality images, or citations supporting their claims. A recurring theme in these reviews is that some of the websites most highly recommended by the reviewers are often ones that you may have never previously known existed. For instance, in
her review on websites for hepatitis C, Doris Strader highly recommended the US Veterans Health Administration website www.hepatitis.va.gov, and in his review of websites for irritable bowel syndrome, Mark Pimental recommended www.ibsgroup.org. Although we are just getting started with this endeavor, and have a number of topics planned, we encourage you to contact the Print and Digital Media Reviews manager, Laura Claus, with proposals of additional topics for patient-oriented websites at [email protected]. In the future, we plan to broaden the type of digital media content in our section reviews.
JOEL H. RUBENSTEIN Veterans Affairs Center for Clinical Management Research and Division of Gastroenterology Department of Internal Medicine University of Michigan Medical School Ann Arbor, Michigan LAURA CLAUS American Gastroenterological Association Bethesda, Maryland
Conflicts of interest The authors disclose no conflicts. http://dx.doi.org/10.1053/j.gastro.2013.01.017
487
T
he mission of GASTROENTEROLOPrint and Digital Media Reviews section is to keep readers apprised of information sources that they may want to obtain. Originally, this section was called Book Reviews, but the name changed in the late 1990s in response to the increasing amount of information disseminated in digital formats. Still, books provide a wonderful compendium that is unique, which is why they remain popular even in our current everexpanding multimedia world; reviews of printed books remain the most common. After an information source is identified, a reviewer with expertise in the area is solicited. We cannot thank these reviewers enough for their efforts. It may seem like quite the honor to be invited to provide a review, but we imagine that once a 600-page book arrives at their doorstep, some reviewers may have had second thoughts. Thankfully, none have backed out! The reviewers are provided uniform criteria on which to create their review. Reviews are necessarily subjective appraisals. However, in an effort to guide reviews toward standardized reporting of those appraisals, we recently initiated a star system for scoring books and other media on each of 4 criteria, GY’s
as well as an overall score using a 5-point Likert scale from 1 star (poor) to 5 stars (excellent). At this writing, the star system has been used in 34 book reviews (Figure 1). Our reviewers have given a rating of 4 stars (good) for the overall score in ⬎50% of books reviewed, but have given a much wider range of scores for the 4 individual criteria. When considering purchasing books or other media, we encourage you to use these scores, in addition to the full-text review, in your deliberation. One of the most frequently reported critiques in book reviews is that the information provided was already out of date by the time the book left the printing press, or that it will likely be out of date within a few years. In response, the Print and Digital Media Reviews section today is not your father’s book review section of yesteryear. Gary Lichtenstein, the previous editor of this section, began soliciting reviews of websites. Under his guidance, GASTROENTEROLOGY published a series of reviews of gastroenterology-related content published on physician-targeted websites. There was a series on UpToDate.com, featuring topics such as physiology/motility guidelines (Hirano I, et al. Gastroenterology 2008; 134:638 – 639), oncology (Terdiman P, et al. Gastroenterology 2008;134:363– 364), GI practice guidelines (McQuaid K. Gastroenterology 2007;133:2068), endoscopy/technology (Sherqill A, et al. Gastroenterology 2007;133:1739), liver practice guidelines (Ayoub W, et al. Gastroenterology 2007;133:1388 –
1389), and IBD chapters (Ullman T, et al. Gastroenterology 2008;134:891– 892). Also, 2 topics—IBD (Deshpande A, et al. Gastroenterology 2008;135: 1014 –1015) and heartburn (Wong R. Gastroenterology 2009;136:2404)—from WebMed.com were reviewed. Hopefully, you have already noticed that over the last year and a half we have begun soliciting reviews of websites with content oriented to patients suffering from common gastrointestinal or hepatic diseases or symptoms. Our intent is to have someone else sort through the plethora of websites that compete for your patients’ attention, enabling you to recommend 1 or 2 trusted websites to your patients with particular ailments. In each review, the reviewer has been asked to compare 6 – 8 specified websites on the same topic using uniform criteria. As of this writing, 5 reviews of topics covering 21 different websites have been completed, and more are planned. The first such patient-oriented website review was on esophageal diseases (Gerson L. Gastroenterology 2011; 141:2275–2276) in general, and after that we elected to focus the reviews more narrowly. Subsequent reviews have been on irritable bowel syndrome (Pimentel M. Gastroenterology 2012;142:1621–1622) hepatitis C (Strader D. Gastroenterology 2012; 143:1398 –1399) celiac disease (Murray J. Gastroenterology 2013;144: 246 –247) and inflammatory bowel disease (Velayos F. Gastroenterology 2013;144:248 –249).
Figure 1. Distribution of scores for book reviews. For each criterion, the distribution of scores is displayed in a box plot (based on reviews of 34 books). The whiskers represent the minimum and maximum scores, the edges of the boxes represent the 25th and 75th percentile scores, and the central hash (with arrowhead) represents the median score. Note that the median overlaps the 25th percentile at 4 stars for both coverage of relevant topics and for the overall score, and overlaps the 75th percentile for improvement over prior media. GASTROENTEROLOGY 2013;144:486 – 487
Commentaries, continued
Figure 2. Distribution of scores for patient-oriented website reviews. For each criterion, the distribution of scores is displayed in a box plot (based on reviews of 21 websites). The whiskers represent the minimum and maximum scores, the edges of the boxes represent the 25th and 75th percentile scores, and the central hash (with arrowhead) represents the median score. Note that the median overlaps with the 75th percentile at 4 stars for complications and ease of navigation, and overlaps with the 75th percentile at 3 stars for quality of images.
As with book reviews, reviewers are asked to rate each website on a number of standard criteria using a 5-point Likert scale. Our reviewers reported substantial variation in the quality of those websites (Figure 2). On average, these patient-oriented websites are best at describing symptoms and treatment, but fare more poorly at providing a differential diagnosis, high-quality images, or citations supporting their claims. A recurring theme in these reviews is that some of the websites most highly recommended by the reviewers are often ones that you may have never previously known existed. For instance, in
her review on websites for hepatitis C, Doris Strader highly recommended the US Veterans Health Administration website www.hepatitis.va.gov, and in his review of websites for irritable bowel syndrome, Mark Pimental recommended www.ibsgroup.org. Although we are just getting started with this endeavor, and have a number of topics planned, we encourage you to contact the Print and Digital Media Reviews manager, Laura Claus, with proposals of additional topics for patient-oriented websites at [email protected]. In the future, we plan to broaden the type of digital media content in our section reviews.
JOEL H. RUBENSTEIN Veterans Affairs Center for Clinical Management Research and Division of Gastroenterology Department of Internal Medicine University of Michigan Medical School Ann Arbor, Michigan LAURA CLAUS American Gastroenterological Association Bethesda, Maryland
Conflicts of interest The authors disclose no conflicts. http://dx.doi.org/10.1053/j.gastro.2013.01.017
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