Survey research in anesthesiology: a field guide to interpretation

Area of Science:

• Anesthesiology
• Medical Research Methodology

Background:

• Survey research is crucial for assessing subjective outcomes in anesthesiology.
• However, conducting and interpreting survey research presents significant challenges.

Purpose of the Study:

• To provide a user-friendly guide for evaluating survey-derived evidence in anesthesiology.
• To apply this guide to analyze published survey research within the anesthesia literature.

Main Methods:

• Synthesized expert guidance on survey methodology and reporting into five key evaluation criteria.
• Applied these criteria to 97 original research articles reporting survey findings from top anesthesia journals (2016-2017).

Main Results:

• Survey research is prevalent in anesthesiology, often using novel instruments (58%).
• Transparency and interpretability varied, with notable inconsistencies in instrument validation (41% for novel surveys) and generalizability reporting (59% for novel surveys).

Conclusions:

• Survey research in anesthesiology is common and often utilizes new tools, but shows variable transparency and interpretability.
• A practical framework is provided for critically interpreting survey-derived outcomes in this field.