WhiteBook2_Part2 - 7

Methods
Before proceeding to answer the questions, participants were required to confirm, via the
online survey, that they had discussed the survey with relevant colleagues and were
answering on behalf of their organisation. Additionally, participants were required to confirm
they had read the study information sheet and understood responses to the survey (including
the name of the national society to which the responses relate) would be made openly
available. To ensure useability, a pilot online survey was tested and reviewed by the UEG
Research Taskforce and UEG Secretariat. A copy of the survey questions can be found in the
Appendix.
At the time of implementation there were 49 UEG national gastroenterology society members
(representing 45 countries located within Europe, Western Asia and Northern Africa) and all
were invited to participate. Societies within countries that had two national society members
(i.e., societies within Belgium, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands) were asked to collaborate to
ensure that only one survey was completed per country. Before the survey was launched, an
online meeting was held with national society representatives to introduce the purpose of the
study and potential benefits of participating, to explain what answering the survey would
involve and what would happen to the results and to answer any initial questions. Following
this meeting, the UEG Secretariat sent an email invite, information sheet and PDF copy of the
survey questions to representatives of each national society who were asked to discuss the
survey with colleagues and respond on behalf of their society. The online survey was open for
four months and closed on 31st August 2021.
Analysis of the survey data was conducted in R (version 4.0.4). To analyse responses to the
ranking questions, mean ranks, pairwise frequencies and marginal frequencies were
calculated using the 'pmr' package.7
The UEG Research Taskforce was involved in the design of the survey questions, selected the
priority ranking criteria, tested the pilot survey and provided feedback. The Taskforce was not
involved in the analysis of the data.
Distribution of research activity in the field of digestive health
A bibliometric analysis was used to provide an overview of the distribution of research
activity in the field of digestive health. For this analysis, the number of publications in
academic journals was used as an indicator of research activity. We estimated quantities of
digestive disorder related publications by research topic and disorder, and where possible
examined publication output in relation to disease burden.
A search strategy was developed to identify digestive disorder related academic journal
publications, limited to human studies, published since the year 2000, by research topic and
White Book 2: Part 2
4

WhiteBook2_Part2

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of WhiteBook2_Part2