Media reporting bias affects reported sudden death rates.

摘要

Steinvil et al. (1) are to be commended for bringing an important problem into the spotlight. In the past 3 weeks in the United States alone, there have been 5 deaths of student athletes. The current practice of pre-participation history and physical examination does not detect most of the athletes at risk of sudden cardiac death (SCD). However, rather than give us guidance on how to identify high-risk athletes, Steinvil et al. (1) have raised more questions.First, their study is based on observational data and retrospective analysis, which are appropriate for generating hypotheses but not for drawing significant conclusions or recommending policy changes. Furthermore, the data used were newspaper/media reports, which have inherent limitations and could lead to information bias. For instance, the deaths of less-successful athletes may be under-reported in the media.