Table 1.

Questions to Address in a News Release

1. What question was the study designed to answer?

2. Who funded the research? Have all potential conflicts of interest been disclosed?

3. Were the findings published in a peer-reviewed authoritative journal?

4. How many subjects participated in the study? How were they selected and (if applicable) how were they assigned to the various study groups?

5. Were the subjects humans or animals? If they were animals, are there limits on the applicability of the findings to people? If the subjects were humans, what was their composition in terms of gender, age, ethnicity, and other important sociodemographic characteristics? Were the human subjects patients or from the general population? Or were they physicians or other health care professionals?

6. If outcomes data are presented, how was the information obtained (e.g., administrative data, chart abstractions, observational data, patient surveys)?

7. Are there any potential threats to the validity of the findings (e.g., large percentage of drop-outs in a clinical trial or nonresponders in survey research, misclassification in outcomes research)?

8. Which variables were controlled for? Are there any other variables that could have influenced the findings that were not controlled for?

9. If the study describes a clinical finding, are there basic science studies that support it? (The intent is to have a plausible mechanism for the observed effect. For example, antibiotics help heal peptic ulcers. Basic science has shown that the bacteria Helicobactor pylori are found in more than 90% of ulcers. So it's logical that treating the H. pylori may heal ulcers—and it does!)

10. What has previous research shown and how do the new findings advance our knowledge?

11. What are the practical applications of the findings? Are there any important caveats?

Adapted from health columnist Jane Brody.⁸