The Methods for Chart Reviews in Research on Emergency Medicine

Abstract

Research in emergency medicine frequently makes use of medical chart reviews. However, the validity of the data extracted via chart reviews is rarely put under close scrutiny. This investigation's goal was to find out how many emergency medicine research articles use information from chart reviews and how many report case selection, abstractor training, monitoring and blinding, and interpreter agreement procedures. We found research publications that appeared in three emergency medicine journals between January 2018 and December 2021. We examined the papers that included chart reviews. In emergency medicine research, chart reviews are a typical way to collect data. However, it is typically lacking information on the data's quality. Higher methodological standards should be required for chart reviews, or the conclusions of these research may not be accurate.