The SAEM Research Committee has collated a list of resources to help you with study design, implementation, evaluation and dissemination. These resources are geared toward more junior investigators, but may be helpful to senior researchers as well.
The Planning Stage
| The Design Stage |
The Data Collection Stage | The Analysis Stage
|
The Dissemination Stage
| Career Development Resources
|
Critical Appraisal Resources
|
The Planning Stage
Getting Started
The HUB provides a single portal to resources, expertise, and best practices for investigators, study staff, participants and partners/affiliates. | |
This guide was developed by the SAEM Research Committee to assist young investigators in navigating the grant process and identify what type of grant is right for them. | |
| Sample Grants | Examples of grants to help you plan and write your own grant. |
See What’s Already Out There: The Literature Search
There are several centralized websites where you can search for publications on any given topic. Here are a few that SAEM suggests:
Biomedical Research
Default of literature search: PubMed. | |
Google can search across many disciplines and sources. | |
The leading resource for systematic reviews in health care. | |
| DARE | University of York has the website you can upload your systematic review protocol and receive the appraisal upon the completion of review. |
Grants
The NIH Research Portfolio Online Reporting Tool's Expenditures & Results, NIH RePORTER database contains a wide variety of data elements regarding currently and formerly funded federal grants, and can help you find what is currently being researched, and who potential collaborators are. | |
ClinicalTrials.gov is a registry and results database of publicly and privately supported clinical studies of human participants conducted around the world. |
Find Collaborators and Mentors
The SAEM Regional and Annual Meetings are excellent places to network and identify mentors. We are also developing online tools to match up mentors and mentees. Check back soon for more information.
| ResearchGate |
| Academia.edu |
Find Funding
| SAEM Foundation | Provides education and research grants to SAEM members. Additionally, the SAEM Research Committee has collated a list of foundations that have funded clinical emergency medicine research. Please email saem@saem.org to add any other foundations that fund EM research. |
| Other Funding Opportunities |
Ethical Principles and Laws
HHS Code of Federal Regulations for Protection of Human Subjects | Here is the regulation concerning research subject. |
This is the requirement for informed consent. | |
HHS Federal Policy for the Protection of Human Subjects (Common Rule) | A common rule to protect human subject in biomedical research. |
| Human Subjects Regulations Decision Charts | Graphic aids to determine whether an activity is research that must be reviewed by an IRB, whether the review may be performed by expedited procedures, and whether informed consent or its documentation may be waived. |
Informed Consent and IRB's
The AHRQ has posted important information and useful toolkit about informed consent, which can help you develop your documents. This will assist you in your IRB application. |
Memorandums of Understanding (MOUs)
Establishing the roles and responsibilities of research team members will help to avoid conflict later on; please see this example of a brief memorandum of understanding that can be used to outline these roles. Provided by Blair Alden Parry CCRC BA and John T. Nagurney, MD, MPH - Department of Emergency Medicine, Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital. |
The Design Stage
Power and Sample Size
There are a few websites where you can search for power and sample size. Here are a few that SAEM suggests:
This shows the options for sample size calculation, namely software, cost and how to. | |
A comprehensive list of Java applet for sample size and power calculation. |
Reporting Guidelines
Visit these informative websites to learn more about the reporting guidelines for your study.
| CONSORT (Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials) | This is the standard format to report clinical trial. |
| Editable Diagram | Another resource is the editable diagram from consort website. |
| STROBE (Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology) | Another resource is the editable diagram from consort website. |
| Credit to the Research Division at the Department of Emergency Medicine at Keck School of Medicine of USC. | |
| PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) | This is the format to report systematic reviewer and meta-analysis. Also, an editable template is available below. |
| Online Diagram Generator | |
| Editable PRIMSA Diagram from the PRISMA Website | |
| Consolidated Criteria for Reporting Qualitative Research (COREQ) | This includes a 32-item checklist for interviews and focus groups, and the format to report qualitative research. |
| Revised Standards for Quality Improvement Reporting Excellence (SQUIRE) | SQUIRE has the format and checklist to report quality improvement project. |
| The Standards for Reporting Diagnostic Accuracy (STARD 2015) | An updated list of essential items for reporting diagnostic accuracy studies; includes checklist and template diagram. |
Inclusion of Women, Children and Ethnic Minority Group Guidelines
| AEM PeRLs Video on Gender-Specific Analyses | This website helps researchers understand how to design gender-specific research studies, including the design, analysis, and considerations involved. |
| Resources from NIH office of Research on Women's Health | The ORWH provides resources on how to incorporate sex as a variable in the design, analysis, and reporting stages of pre-clinical studies. |
Additional Resources
The SGBA provides resources for and helps researchers understand how to conduct sex and gender-based analysis for research studies. | |
This web page provides links useful in reporting race and ethnicity data for research studies. | |
This web page provides links useful in keeping researchers current on how to report demographic information. |
The Data Collection Stage
Clear screening and enrollment logs, as well as exquisitely detailed enrollment checklist, will improve the rigor of your research. These examples will help in crafting study specific documents.
Screening Logs
| Screening Log Example #1 [.xls] | Provided by Blair Alden Parry CCRC BA and John T. Nagurney, MD, MPH - Department of Emergency Medicine, Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital. |
| Screening Log Example #2 [.xls] | Provided by Blair Alden Parry CCRC BA and John T. Nagurney, MD, MPH - Department of Emergency Medicine, Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital. |
Intro Email
Informing the department of your new study will assist in data collection and reduce conflicts in the clinical areas. This example email will assist you in writing your own. Provided by Blair Alden Parry CCRC BA and John T. Nagurney, MD, MPH - Department of Emergency Medicine, Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital.
Data Management Tools
Online Data Collection
REDCap is an online survey and database manager used to virtually collect a diverse range of data all over the world. | |
OpenClinica is a user friendly electronic data capturing and data management system, for both study participants and researchers. | |
| Clinovo clinCapture | Clinic Capture is a validated cloud-based electronic data capturing system used for clinical studies and data management. |
| Magpi | Magpi is a mobile data management and capturing system, messaging, and visualization app for research studies. |
Data Management
FileMaker Pro is a web-based program to manage and report data and is accessible through various with various mobile devices.
| Microsoft Access | Microsoft Access uses a desktop database system that helps organize, edit, and display data in a readable format. |
| FileMaker Pro is a web-based program to manage and report data and is accessible through various with various mobile devices. |
Survey Instruments
Survey Monkey is a simple online survey generator. | |
Zoomerang is a survey/poll builder used to collect data. | |
| Survey Gizmo | Survey Gizmo is a tool used to design and administer surveys online and populates survey data collected. |
| PollDaddy | Polldaddy is an online polling, surveying, rating, and quiz tool used to collect data and provide information in real-time. |
| Qualtrics | Qualtrics is online research software used for market research and demographic data collection and management. |
| QuestionPro | QuestionPro is surveying software that is feasible for mobile research platforms. |
The Analysis Stage
There are many resources where you can find tools for analysis. Here are a few that SAEM suggests:
Helpful Online Tools
The NNT provides this easy to use tool to convert an Odds Ratio to a NNT | |
The diagnostic test calculator is useful in determining the sensitivity, specificity, likelihood ratios, and other diagnostic test characteristics for research studies. | |
The JAMA Evidence Calculators provides several useful online statistical tools, excellent resource, but subscription required for most. |
Statistics Help
STATA
| STATA Video Tutorials | This website provides useful videos to help researchers navigate through STATA, statistical analysis software with easy to learn codes that can manage large sets of data. |
R
The R project is a free statistical computing system and graphics generator that is compatible with both Windows and Mac OS. | |
| R News and Tutorials | This website provides useful tutorials on how to use the R Project software. |
| Tidyverse | The tidyverse is an opinionated collection of R packages designed for data science. All packages share an underlying design philosophy, grammar, and data structures. |
| R for Data Science | You’ll learn how to get your data into R, get it into the most useful structure, transform it, visualise it and model it |
SPSS
| SPSS Tutorials | This website provides resources to help researchers navigate through SPSS, a simple statistical software usually for beginners. |
The Dissemination Stage
There are many resources where you can find tools for manuscript preparation. Here are a few that SAEM suggests:
Manuscript Preparation
The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICJEM) | Recommendations for conduct, reporting, editing and publication of scholarly work |
Career Development Resources
Gaining Skills in Research
You cannot be successful at anything in life without the requisite skill set. You trained to earn the privilege of treating patients. You trained to learn how to apply your emergency care skills to anyone with any disease who rolls through your ED door. What makes you think you can learn to do research without being trained? Even more than that, why would anyone give you the time or money when you yourself have not shown that you are willing to take the time (and maybe sacrifice the money) to learn how to do it right. Find a mentor, learn the skills required, and then an employer or funding agency is much more likely to see the value you bring to the table. You might get lucky without training, but odds are against you.
-Judd Hollander, MD, Associate Dean for Strategic Health Initiatives, Sidney Kimmel Medical College at Thomas Jefferson University, Department of Emergency Medicine
Articles and Presentations
Perry JJ, Snider CE, Artz JD, et al. CAEP 2014 Academic Symposium: "How to make research succeed in your emergency department: How to develop and train career researchers in emergency medicine ". Cjem. 2015;17(3):334-343.
Excellent insights into building an academic career in emergency medicine research.
SAEM Introduction to Research Curriculum
Initiating clinical research in emergency medicine can be a daunting task especially for residents, junior faculty, fellows and other early career investigators. To address many of the challenges that arise, the SAEM Research Committee has created an “Introduction to Research” curriculum to take place on a rotating basis over three SAEM Annual Meetings. The curriculum is designed to provide yearly didactics in four discrete areas:
- “Getting Started” will teach you how to foster collaborations, obtain mentors, deal with the IRB and find grant funding in order to leverage your research idea into a successful product.
- “Methods” will introduce you to research methods that are highly relevant to early career researchers: retrospective chart reviews, studies utilizing electronic databases, and mixed methods, such as surveys and qualitative research.
- “Analysis” will introduce you to the basics of biostatistics and epidemiology. This series will cover foundation concepts such as p-values and precision, but will also introduce methods to both recognize and deal with potential bias and confounding.
- “Dissemination of Information” will familiarize you with basic concepts related to abstract and manuscript writing, publication, the perspective of peer reviewers, and writing for the lay public.
Keep checking the SAEM Annual Meeting Websites for forthcoming educational opportunities in research skills
Critical Appraisal Resources
There are many resources where you can find tools for critical appraisals. Here are a few that SAEM suggests:
| Center for evidence-based medicine, University of Oxford | This website provides resources to help researchers develop critical appraisals in addition to providing worksheets and examples of critical appraisals. |
| Critical Appraisal Skills Programme (CASP) | CASP provides e-learning resources to help researchers develop critical appraisals. |