Journal clubs

Raphaels School of Athens, depicting distinct branches of philosophy & knowledge

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Introduction

See also Critical appraisal and Research for librarians - portal

Journals clubs are used by academic and health librarians around the world to discuss and critically evaluate articles from the peer-reviewed literature. The principles used to establish journal clubs have been borrowed from our health professional peers.

Journal club members read articles before a meeting and share their views about the design of a research project, examine its statistics and appropriateness of controls. The journal club begins with a general discussion of the paper's quality and conclusions; sometimes, there may be an attempt to synthesize several papers (especially in clinical medicine where evidence can be contradictory). If a paper's findings and conclusions are valid, there may be discussion about how useful those are overall and whether this might lead to new research. Journal clubs are often used in graduate programs to help students become familiar with the literature in their field; they are also used by health professionals in academic environments. Journal clubs help to improve skills of understanding and debating. In some institutions, journal clubs are mandatory or may be taken for credit. Research labs organize journal clubs for their researchers in order to help them read the scientific literature and debate concepts.

Deenadayalan et al performed a systematic review of the characteristics of successful journal clubsin 2008. They were: 1) regular and anticipated meetings, 2) mandatory attendance for members, 3) clear long and short-term goals, 4) appropriate meeting dates and incentives to attend, 5) a trained journal club leader to lead discussion, 6) circulating papers prior to the meeting, 7) using the Internet for wider dissemination and data storage, 8) using established critical appraisal methods and summarizing journal club findings.

In 2011, Young published a paper entitled "The prevalence and practices of academic library journal clubs" in the Journal of Academic Librarianship.

Principles of a good journal club

• Focus on current real problems of interest to all members
• Appoint a moderator, preferably someone different each meeting
• Outline the important learning points at the start, and establish critical appraisal methods used
• Ask members to bring questions, enthusiasm and a sense of humour
• Something good to eat is always welcome
• Use e-mail or web 2.0 tools to remind members about time, place, topics
• Bring copies of the papers for all
• Keep copies of the appraisal tools, and make them available
• Keep a log of questions asked and answered
• Finish with a summary of discussion and follow up (eg, tools, flowchart, audits, and further searches)

Role of librarians

• varies with context: mainly teaching/refining the searching part ("Anatomy of a Search") done generally in a separate session from the appraisal skills ("Anatomy of an Article")
• can intervene in critical appraisal as well as skills and confidence level increase and can become a (co) moderator
• use worksheets, summaries, set of questions to ask, small vignettes - resource presentation etc.

Conducting a successful EBM journal club

1. Organization: formalize structure and process well in advance (rationale, objectives, methods, evaluation method, etc).
2. Clearly define roles and get department/organization support and commitment
3. Recruit coordinator, moderator, librarian, presenter, audience: "give everyone a job"
4. "Use real life clinical situations"
5. "Teach the basics ahead of time" and "be prepared to go back to basics" as you go along.
6. Provide snacks!
7. Handouts (depending on context/role): article discussed, structured review checklist, tip sheet for presenter, guide for participants, evaluation, review of resources etc.

Challenges

1. Selling / Buy-in ("What's in it for me" if this is not a CME credited activity)
2. Have a "champion of research" (subject specialist) to coordinate and moderate
3. Clear role definition

Further reading: What Makes Journal Clubs Succeed? – Article from Evidence Based Medicine http://ebm.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/9/2/36

Starting an online journal club

One alternative to F2F journal clubs is to form an online journal. There are a number of reasons why onlin journal clubs are useful, for example:

• provides an asynchronous learning environment;
• 24/7 availability; not time or place dependent;
• expert facilitation; directed commentary;
• based on adult learning principles;
  • self-directed, task-oriented; emphasis on real-life situations; interactions among participants; involves of opinion leaders

A range of social media tools can be used to form online journal clubs, such as:

• Journal Watch online
• Lizarondo L, Kumar S, Grimmer-Somers K. Online journal clubs: an innovative approach to achieving evidence-based practice. J Allied Health. 2010;39(1):e17-22.

Historical note

The earliest references to journal clubs in health and medicine are in the memoirs and letters of Sir James Paget, a British surgeon, who described a group of physicians at St. Bartholomew's Hospital in London in the mid-1800s who met as "a kind of club ... a small room over a baker's shop near the Hospital-gate where we could sit and read the journals."

Sir William Osler established the first formal medical journal club at McGill University in Montreal in 1875. The original purpose of Osler's journal club was "for the purchase and distribution of periodicals to which he could ill afford to subscribe."

References