MJA Structured Abstracts

mja.com.au | The Medical Journal of Australia

Structured Abstracts

Research articles

Articles containing original data concerning the course (prognosis), cause (aetiology), diagnosis, treatment, prevention, or economic analysis of a clinical disorder or an intervention to improve the quality of health care should include a structured abstract of no longer than 250 words with the following headings and information:

Objective: State the main question or objective of the study and the major hypothesis tested, if any.

Design: Describe the design of the study indicating, as appropriate, use of randomization, blinding, criterion standards for diagnostic tests, temporal direction (retrospective or prospective), and so on.

Setting: Indicate the study setting, including the level of clinical care (for example, primary or tertiary; private practice or institutional).

Patients, Participants: State selection procedures, entry criteria, and numbers of participants entering and finishing the study.

Interventions: Describe the essential features of any interventions, including their method and duration of administration.

Main Outcome Measure(s): The primary study outcome measures should be indicated as planned before data collection began. If the hypothesis being reported was formulated during or after data collection, this fact should be clearly stated.

Results: Describe measurements that are not evident from the nature of the main results and indicate any blinding. If possible, the results should be accompanied by confidence intervals (most often the 95% interval) and the exact level of statistical significance. For comparative studies confidence intervals should relate to the differences between groups. Absolute values should be indicated when risk changes or effect sizes are given.

Conclusions: State only those conclusions of the study that are directly supported by data, along with their clinical application (avoiding overgeneralization) or whether additional study is required before the information should be used in usual clinical settings. Equal emphasis must be given to positive and negative findings of equal scientific merit.

Review articles

Abstracts for review articles should have the following headings and information:

Objective: State the primary objective of the review article.

Data Sources: Describe the data sources that were searched, including dates, terms and constraints.

Study Selection: Identify the number of studies reviewed and the criteria used for their selection.

Data Extraction: Summarise guidelines used for abstracting data and how they were applied.

Data Synthesis: State the main results of the review and methods used to obtain these results.

Conclusions: State primary conclusions and their clinical applications, avoiding overgeneralization. Suggest areas for additional research if needed.