Paper reporting on OCS-Care study now available

Our paper on the multi-site OCS-Care study is now available on AMRC open research, an open access and open review pre- and post-print service by F1000 Research. The study was one of the last large projects led by the late Prof Humphreys, to whom the grant by the Stroke Association was awarded. Prof Humphreys designed and led the majority of this project and unfortunately was unable to see its completion. Although it has taken us a while to curate all the data, we finally completed the data cleaning and analysis with visiting MSc student Shuo Sun and are now closing this study by publishing this overall report.

The study found a null result in the primary registered, outcome measure:  in a comparison of patients screened with MoCA or OCS, overall broad stroke outcomes after 6 months did not differ. Exploratory analyses highlight the varying trajectories post stroke in a large group of 467 stroke survivors for who data was collected acutely and 6 month post stroke with a proportion of patients demonstrating stable cognitive performance, most demonstrating recovery, and around a fifth of patients showing cognitive decline.

The paper reflects some of our core values, in collaborative and open research:

This study ran in 37 different hospital sites with the help of UKCRN, and with the excellent coordination by the Study Management Team of Dr Tracy Nevatte and Mrs Alison Buttery. The analysis and write up was a true collaborative effort in the lab, and we set time aside as a group to work on this, kick-starting the write up with the ‘paper in a day’ approach (thanks to Prof Jennifer Tackett for inspiration!), organised by our postdoctoral fellow Dr Kathleen Vancleef. 

The experience of submitting our first paper to AMRC Open Research was very positive. Clear instructions, clear ways of presenting data, all data openly available in a public repository for other groups to use and all code attached and available (all available under the project on Figshare). The paper even includes one of Shuo’s beautiful interactive Figures. AMRC Open also uses CRediT statements to make author contributions fully transparent. Finally, we look forward to the open and signed reviews, which will be a first for us too.

The lay summary of the paper can be found here.

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