Quality assessment of reviewers' reports using a simple instrument.

Objective: To validate and test a simple instrument for assessing the quality of a review.

Methods: In this prospective observational study, the quality of 247 reviews of 119 original articles submitted to the Dutch Journal of Medicine was assessed using a 5-point scale that has been used for years by Obstetrics & Gynecology. Each review was assessed by three editors of the journal.

A regression model with unexplained residuals was preferred in the analysis of the fetal origins of adult diseases hypothesis.

Background And Objective: A continued controversy exists whether the assessment of the influence of low birth weight on adult blood pressure necessitates adjustment for adult weight in the analysis on the fetal origins of adult diseases hypothesis. Here we first explain the difficulty in understanding an adjusted multivariate regression model, and then propose another way of writing the regression model to make the interpretation of the separate influence of birth weight and changes in weight later in life more straightforward.

Study Design And Setting: We used a multivariate regression model containing birth weight (standard deviation score; SDS), and residual adult weight (SDS) to explore the effect on blood pressure (or any other outcome) separately.