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Circular instead of hierarchical: methodological principles for the evaluation of complex interventions

Overview of attention for article published in BMC Medical Research Methodology, June 2006
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About this Attention Score

  • In the top 25% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (89th percentile)
  • Average Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source

Mentioned by

twitter
11 X users
wikipedia
3 Wikipedia pages

Citations

dimensions_citation
204 Dimensions

Readers on

mendeley
219 Mendeley
citeulike
2 CiteULike
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1 Connotea
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Title
Circular instead of hierarchical: methodological principles for the evaluation of complex interventions
Published in
BMC Medical Research Methodology, June 2006
DOI 10.1186/1471-2288-6-29
Pubmed ID
Authors

Harald Walach, Torkel Falkenberg, Vinjar Fønnebø, George Lewith, Wayne B Jonas

Abstract

The reasoning behind evaluating medical interventions is that a hierarchy of methods exists which successively produce improved and therefore more rigorous evidence based medicine upon which to make clinical decisions. At the foundation of this hierarchy are case studies, retrospective and prospective case series, followed by cohort studies with historical and concomitant non-randomized controls. Open-label randomized controlled studies (RCTs), and finally blinded, placebo-controlled RCTs, which offer most internal validity are considered the most reliable evidence. Rigorous RCTs remove bias. Evidence from RCTs forms the basis of meta-analyses and systematic reviews. This hierarchy, founded on a pharmacological model of therapy, is generalized to other interventions which may be complex and non-pharmacological (healing, acupuncture and surgery).

X Demographics

X Demographics

The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 11 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 219 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
United Kingdom 9 4%
United States 3 1%
Germany 1 <1%
Australia 1 <1%
Netherlands 1 <1%
Portugal 1 <1%
New Zealand 1 <1%
Canada 1 <1%
Japan 1 <1%
Other 1 <1%
Unknown 199 91%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Researcher 47 21%
Student > Master 30 14%
Student > Ph. D. Student 25 11%
Student > Bachelor 23 11%
Student > Doctoral Student 14 6%
Other 52 24%
Unknown 28 13%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Medicine and Dentistry 97 44%
Nursing and Health Professions 21 10%
Social Sciences 15 7%
Psychology 9 4%
Agricultural and Biological Sciences 9 4%
Other 27 12%
Unknown 41 19%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 10. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 16 January 2022.
All research outputs
#3,553,211
of 25,072,471 outputs
Outputs from BMC Medical Research Methodology
#553
of 2,235 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#8,119
of 78,398 outputs
Outputs of similar age from BMC Medical Research Methodology
#5
of 7 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 25,072,471 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done well and is in the 85th percentile: it's in the top 25% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 2,235 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 10.4. This one has done well, scoring higher than 75% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 78,398 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done well, scoring higher than 89% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 7 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has scored higher than 2 of them.