Talk:Obesity hypoventilation syndrome/GA1

GA Review

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I'm starting a review of this article. Looie496 (talk) 20:07, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Initial points

A couple of quick hits. First, the lead needs to be made readable to non-physicians. This article isn't going to be read by doctors, it is going to be read by patients and their friends and relatives, and maybe by high-school or college students. The technical information should be there, but the article should start by explaining the condition in a more user-friendly way. Second, it would be nice to include a picture of Joe the fat boy -- there are lots of public domain editions of Pickwick Papers floating around so this ought to be possible. More to come… Looie496 (talk) 20:17, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

I've just looked at the intro again, and I'm not actually sure which bits could be made easier for the layperson. I have already tried to explain the symptoms in lay terminology (edema is more than just swelling). Could you specify which bits need improving? JFW | T@lk 23:28, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

The first sentence in particular. Imagine that you told your grandmother, "I'm working on a Wikipedia article on Obesity hypoventilation syndrome". "What's that?", she says. What is needed here, at the very beginning, is the answer that you would give your grandmother. If you recited the first sentence of the current article to her, she would think you were being pedantic. The "lay" version can then be followed by a sentence that translates this into precise language. (If mentioning your grandmother is somehow hurtful or offensive, I apologize—it's just a way of trying to think concretely about the audience—somebody you respect and care about but who you know doesn't have much background.) Looie496 (talk) 00:45, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Followup -- I took a shot at revising the lead in the direction I had in mind. Please don't hesitate to alter it if I got anything wrong. Looie496 (talk) 17:58, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for having a go at the intro. It is easy to get drawn into the use of terminology. I have shuffled bits of the intro around. I try to avoid saying the same thing twice, once in English and once in Medicalese. JFW | T@lk 21:57, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

The rest

After a pretty careful reading, I think this is fundamentally a very good article and it won't take all that much to solve the problems. Sourcing looks good, and consistency with MEDMOS is very good in most respects. I see two more issues. First, there are a few cases of unnecessarily medicalized terminology, e.g., "some present to hospital" in Treatment. Second, in Prognosis, there ought to be some information about how likely treatment is to resolve the condition. Looie496 (talk) 20:37, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

I have improved the use of the term "presenting to hospital".

The sources are actually a bit vague on the likelihood of the treatment being effective. I will need to dig through the main reviews. JFW | T@lk 23:31, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

My main source, Mokhlesi 2007, gives very few hard figures. The only useful figure comes from a smallish study that showed improvement with CPAP in 57% of OHS patients. Otherwise I can understand why the authors discuss outcomes sparingly: the interventional studies are all fairly small and the findings might not be generalisable. What is known is that treatment reduces the need for hospital admission and decreases healthcare expenditure. JFW | T@lk 22:10, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Well, I think you might as well say what there is to be said, even if it isn't much. Once you do that, I'll pass the article, as soon as I get around to the bookkeeping. Looie496 (talk) 23:01, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Not an ideal source, but there's some information here. Looie496 (talk) 23:19, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

I have added some data on the effects of treatment. Budweiser et al is a primary research study so slightly less ideal for the purposes of sourcing. JFW | T@lk 13:58, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Pass

Good enough -- I'm going to pass the article. I still think a picture of "Joe" would be nice, but in looking around I couldn't find a really good one, and there is a danger of offending people if it is not handled carefully. Looie496 (talk) 17:52, 19 December 2008 (UTC)