Psychiatric genomics research during the COVID ‐19 pandemic: A survey of Psychiatric Genomics Consortium researchers

  1. Jerry Guintivano
  2. Danielle Dick
  3. Cynthia M. Bulik

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Abstract

Between April 20, 2020 and June 19, 2020 we conducted a survey of the membership of the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium (PGC) to explore the impact of COVID‐19 on their research and academic careers. A total of 123 individuals responded representing academic ranks from trainee to full professor, tenured and fixed‐term appointments, and all genders. The survey included both quantitative and free text responses. Results revealed considerable concern about the impact of COVID‐19 on research with the greatest concern reported by individuals in nonpermanent positions and female researchers. Concerns about the availability of funding and the impact of the pandemic on career progression were commonly reported by early career researchers. Recommendations for institutions, organizations such as the PGC, as well as individual senior investigators have been provided to ensure that the futures of early career investigators, especially those underrepresented in academic medicine such as women and underrepresented minorities, are not disproportionately disadvantaged by the COVID‐19 pandemic.

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  1. Version published to 10.1002/ajmg.b.32838
  2. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.10.08.331421: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board StatementIRB: This study was approved by the University of North Carolina Institutional Review Board Committee for the Protection of Human Subjects.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variableFor analyses on gender, only male and female respondents were used due to small sample sizes of other respondents.

    Table 2: Resources

    No key resources detected.

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
    Some caveats and limitations should be considered when interpreting the results. First, the extent to which our sample represents the larger PGC is unknown as we are unable to calculate response rate or representativeness as the survey link was shared widely across PGC groups and subgroups. The composition of the sample, namely primarily female (53.7% of total sample) and in a permanent/tenured position (56.1%), does not necessarily reflect the overall composition of the PGC and may reflect selective participation. Second, given our goal of providing strictly descriptive results, we did not undertake formal efforts at establishing a coding scheme for the free text responses. Third, the survey was deployed relatively early in the pandemic when it was not yet clear how long the disruption to research would go on. Responses could change as the duration of the home- and work-related disruption continues and researchers become increasingly fatigued by the pervasive and persistent disruption. Finally, our failure to assess race and ethnicity was a missed opportunity to capture specific concerns faced by researchers from underrepresented minority groups. As a field, genetics already has considerable underrepresentation of researchers from diverse ancestral backgrounds; our findings for other historically disadvantaged groups (e.g., women, early career investigators) suggest that the pandemic may further exacerbate this underrepresentation. Recurring themes that emerged focused on th...

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.

    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.

    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.

    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    About SciScore

    SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers), and for rigor criteria such as sex and investigator blinding. For details on the theoretical underpinning of rigor criteria and the tools shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.

  3. Version published to 10.1101/2020.10.08.331421v1 on bioRxiv