Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources (medicine)

Cite reviews, don't write them.Biomedical information must be based on reliable, third-party published secondary sources, and must accurately reflect current knowledge.

This guideline supports the general sourcing policy with specific attention to what is appropriate for medical content in any Wikipedia article, including those on alternative medicine.

Ideal sources for biomedical information include: review articles (especially systematic reviews) published in reputable medical journals, academic and professional books written by experts in the relevant fields and from respected publishers, and guidelines or position statements from national or international expert bodies.

Primary sources should not be aggregated or presented without context in order to undermine proportionate representation of opinion in a field.

Findings are often touted in the popular press as soon as primary research is reported, before the scientific community has analyzed and commented on the results.

If conclusions are worth mentioning (such as large randomized clinical trials with surprising results), they should be described appropriately as from a single study: "A large study published in 2010 found that selenium and Vitamin E supplements, separately as well as together, did not decrease the risk of getting prostate cancer and that vitamin E may increase the risk; they were previously thought to prevent prostate cancer."

Experiments and studies can produce flawed results or even fall victim to deliberate fraud (e.g. the Retracted article on dopaminergic neurotoxicity of MDMA and the Schön scandal.)

Wikipedia policies on the neutral point of view and not publishing original research demand that we present prevailing medical or scientific consensus, which can be found in recent, authoritative review articles, in statements and practice guidelines issued by major professional medical or scientific societies (for example, the European Society of Cardiology or the Infectious Disease Society of America) and widely respected governmental and quasi-governmental health authorities (for example, AHRQ, USPSTF, NICE, and WHO), in textbooks, or in scholarly monographs.

When writing about any health effect, assessing evidence quality helps distinguish between minor and major views, determine due weight, and identify accepted evidence-based information.

Medical guidelines or position statements by internationally or nationally recognized expert bodies also often contain recommendations, along with assessments of underlying evidence (see WP:MEDORG).

For example, results of an early-stage clinical trial would not be appropriate in the 'Treatment' section of a disease article because future treatments have little bearing on current practice.

The results might – in some cases – be appropriate for inclusion in an article specifically dedicated to the treatment in question or to the researchers or businesses involved in it.

In vitro studies and animal models serve a central role in research, and are invaluable in determining mechanistic pathways and generating hypotheses.

Symposia and supplements to academic journals are commonly sponsored by industry groups with a financial interest in the outcome of the research reported.

[14] Indications that an article was published in a supplement may be fairly subtle; for instance, a letter "s" added to a page number,[15] or "Suppl."

Citing your own organization, such as a governmental health agency or an NGO producing high-quality systematic reviews, is generally acceptable – if the conflict of interest is disclosed, it is done to improve coverage of a topic, and not with the sole purpose of driving traffic to your site.

[16] To access the full text of a book or journal article, the editor may need to use the Wikipedia Library, visit a medical library, pay to read it, or ask someone at the WikiProject Resource Exchange or WikiProject Medicine's talk page to either provide an electronic copy or read the source and summarize what it says; if none of this is possible, the editor may need to find a different source.

In addition to experiments, primary sources normally contain introductory, background, or review sections that place their research in the context of previous work; these sections may be cited in Wikipedia with care: they are often incomplete[17] and typically less reliable than reviews or other sources, such as textbooks, which are intended to be reasonably comprehensive.

Some systematic reviews also include a statistical meta-analysis to combine the results of several clinical trials to provide stronger quantitative evidence about how well a treatment works for a particular purpose.

A systematic review uses a reproducible methodology to select primary (or sometimes secondary) studies meeting explicit criteria to address a specific question.

Others, such as Journal of Medical Biography, publish historical material that can be valuable for History sections, but is rarely useful for current medicine.

On Wikipedia, the CiteWatch compilation (updated twice monthly) and the Unreliable/Predatory Source Detector script can be leveraged to facilitate the detection of predatory journals.

Indications that an article was published in a supplement may be fairly subtle; for instance, a letter "S" added to a page number,[24] or "Suppl."

However, groups that do have a COI may hide behind layers of front organizations with innocuous names, so the ultimate funding sources should always be ascertained.

High-quality textbooks can be a good source to start an article, and often include general overviews of a field or subject.

Guidelines and position statements provided by major medical and scientific organizations are important on Wikipedia because they present recommendations and opinions that many caregivers rely upon (or may even be legally obliged to follow).

Such articles may be based uncritically on a press release, which themselves promote research with uncertain relevance to human health and do not acknowledge important limitations, even when issued by an academic medical center.

Conversely, the high-quality popular press can be a good source for social, biographical, current-affairs, financial, and historical information in a medical article.

For example, popular science magazines such as New Scientist and Scientific American are not peer reviewed, but sometimes feature articles that explain medical subjects in plain English.

[31] Consequently, they are usually poor sources and should always be used with caution, never used to support surprising claims, and carefully identified in the text as preliminary work.

People most interested in improving only a single article may have a connection to its subject.
Montage with central stripe reading "PLoS MEDICINE". Other images are orange segments, a woman in a blue shawl carrying a food package labeled "USA", a pregnant woman holding hands with a child, a hand holding several different pills over a lap covered by a colorful dress, patients in a hospital, and pills on a leaf.
PLoS Medicine and other open access journals can be useful as sources for images in Wikipedia articles. Because the above image was published under the terms of a Creative Commons license , it can be uploaded to Wikimedia Commons and used on Wikipedia. Click on the above image to find its source.
Guidelines are important on Wikipedia because they present recommended practices and positions of major authorities.
* Health technology assessments or HTA s are the gold standard when it comes to assessing evidence quality. They take into account various aspects such as effect, risks, economic costs, and ethical concerns of a treatment. They seldom make recommendations, but instead explain most effective treatments and potential hazards and discuss gaps in knowledge. Their name is somewhat of a misnomer as they do not need to concern "technology" as perceived by the public – but rather any intervention intended to improve health.
Reliable sources must be strong enough to support the claim. A lightweight source may be acceptable for a lightweight claim, but never for an extraordinary claim.