ArticleCritical care explorations2023
Data Missingness Reporting and Use of Methods to Address It in Critical Care Cohort Studies.
Article in Critical care explorations, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed, 3 citations in OpenAlex.
- Missing Values in Empirical Research: Theory and Practice. Part 39 of a Series on the Evaluation of Scientific Publications.Deutsches Arzteblatt international · 2026Review
- Augmenting Mortality Prediction in Critically Ill Adults With Medication Data and Machine Learning Models.Critical care explorations · 2025Article
- Mind the Gaps: Literature Survey Reveals Shortcomings in Handling Missing Data in Clinical Practice Research Datalink (CPRD), a UK Primary Care Health Records Database.Clinical epidemiology · 2025Article
- Relationship Between Pain and Delirium in Critically Ill Adults.Critical care explorations · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
importanceFailure to recognize and address data missingness in cohort studies may lead to biased results. Although Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology reporting guidelines advocate data missingness reporting, the degree to which missingness is reported and addressed in the critical care literature remains unclear.
objectivesTo review published ICU cohort studies to characterize data missingness reporting and the use of methods to address it. DESIGN SETTING AND
participantsWe searched the 2022 table of contents of 29 critical care/critical care subspecialty journals having a 2021 impact factor greater than or equal to 3 to identify published prospective clinical or retrospective database cohort studies enrolling greater than or equal to 100 patients. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES: In duplicate, two trained researchers conducted a manuscript/supplemental material PDF word search for "missing*" and extracted study type, patient age, ICU type, sample size, missingness reporting, and the use of methods to address it.
resultsA total of 656 studies were reviewed. Of the 334 of 656 (50.9%) studies mentioning missingness, missingness was reported for greater than or equal to 1 variable in 234 (70.1%) and it exceeded 5% for at least one variable in 160 (47.9%). Among the 334 studies mentioning missingness, 88 (26.3%) used exclusion criteria, 36 (10.8%) used complete-case analysis, and 164 (49.1%) used a formal method to avoid missingness. In these 164 studies, imputation only was used in 100 (61.0%), an analytic strategy only in 24 (14.6%), and both in 40 (24.4%). Only missingness greater than 5% (in ≥ 1 variable) was independently associated with greater use of a missingness method (adjusted odds ratio 2.91; 95% CI, 1.85-4.60). Among 140 studies using imputation, multiple imputation was used in 87 studies (62.1%) and simple imputation in 49 studies (35.0%). For the 64 studies using an analytic method, 12 studies (18.8%) assigned missingness as an unknown category, whereas sensitivity analysis was used in 47 studies (73.4%). CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE: Among published critical care cohort studies, only half mentioned result missingness, one-third reported actual missingness and only one-quarter used a method to manage missingness. Educational strategies to promote missingness reporting and resolution methods are required.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.