[Turn-over of non-tenured public health research personnel in an Italian public research institute (IRCCS).] / Il turn-over del personale con contratti di lavoro flessibili o borse di studio dedicato alla ricerca sanitaria in un IRCCS pubblico italiano.

BACKGROUND: The objective is to show variations in the number of non-tenured personnel (NTP) in a public health research centre (IRCCS) between 30th June 2016 and 31st December 2017. In this time interval, the issue of NTP was at the centre of governmental discussions. METHODS: Data collection was performed from CVs and scientific publications of NTP working at the Fondazione IRCCS Istituto Nazionale dei Tumori (INT). We compared the characteristics of NTP entering or leaving INT and those of NTP who remained in the considered time interval. RESULTS: NTP in INT counted 465 members of staff at 30th June 2016 and 472 at 31st December 2017. 75% of these works in the research. 26% of NTP left INT and their position resulted entirely substituted by other NTP. NTP staff who left are mainly aged under 40 and show fewer publications than those who stayed. Newly acquired NTP are younger and show a fewer number of publications compared to the personnel who left. CONCLUSIONS: 1 out of 4 NTP members of staff moved to a new job during a period in which the uncertain future of NTP research staff was under the spotlight. It appears that IRCCS are progressively being identified as suitable for hands-on, post university internships from which researchers would then choose to move, in search of a new job in public or private centres, with a consequent decline of IRCCS' role in health research.

Variables affecting evaluation and publication of oncology case reports: a systematic analysis.

BACKGROUND: Studies on factors affecting editorial decisions of scientific journals are scarce. In this study, we focused on case reports submitted to oncology journals and analyzed whether their nature or other relevant variables affected the chances of their acceptance. METHODS: We analyzed case reports submitted to 2 oncology journals: Tumori Journal and The International Journal of Biological Markers, and split them into 3 predefined groups: those (a) describing rare or unusual presentation of diseases, (b) describing the side effects of an intervention or (c) describing the success of a novel intervention. Publication status was retrospectively retrieved from the submission system, and acceptance rates were calculated taking into account other variables including geographic location of corresponding author. RESULTS: A total of 326 case reports were suitable for analysis. The acceptance rate was 35.4% for group (a), 27.9% for group (b), 19.6% for group (c) (p = 0.01). After correcting for other variables, the odds ratio (OR) of being accepted for group (c) was 0.58 (95% CI, 0.33-1.00) compared with the other groups combined. There was a highly significant difference of acceptance rates between manuscripts with authors coming from developed vs. developing countries that remained significant (OR = 5.94; 95% CI, 3.05-10.09) after correcting for multiple variables. CONCLUSIONS: The nature of a case report in oncology may affect acceptance rate, with case reports describing successful approaches or side effects of treatment being accepted with a higher frequency then case reports describing a rare clinical or diagnostic scenario. Also, works coming from developed countries are accepted significantly more frequently than case reports coming from developing countries.