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Competing with a pandemic: Trends in research design in a time of Covid-19

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  • Shelly X Bian
  • Eugene Lin

Abstract

Introduction: During the Covid-19 pandemic, major journals have published a significant number of Covid-19 related articles in a short period of time. While this is necessary to combat the worldwide pandemic, it may have trade-offs with respect to publishing research from other disciplines. Objectives: To assess differences in published research design before and after the Covid-19 pandemic. Methods: We performed a cross-sectional review of all 322 full-length research studies published between October 1, 2019 and April 30, 2020 in three major medical journals. We compared the number of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and studies with a control group before and after January 31, 2020, when Covid-19 began garnering international attention. Results: The number of full-length research studies per issue was not statistically different before and after the Covid-19 pandemic (from 3.7 to 3.5 per issue, p = 0.17). Compared to before January 31, 2020, 0.7 fewer non-Covid-19 studies per issue were published versus after January 31, 2020 (p

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  • Shelly X Bian & Eugene Lin, 2020. "Competing with a pandemic: Trends in research design in a time of Covid-19," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(9), pages 1-14, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0238831
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0238831
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Heidi Ledford, 2020. "Coronavirus shuts down trials of drugs for multiple other diseases," Nature, Nature, vol. 580(7801), pages 15-16, April.
    2. Diana Kwon, 2020. "How swamped preprint servers are blocking bad coronavirus research," Nature, Nature, vol. 581(7807), pages 130-131, May.
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