Objective To identify the source (press releases or news) of distortions, exaggerations, or changes to the main conclusions drawn from research that could potentially influence a reader’s health related behaviour.Design Retrospective quantitative content analysis.Setting Journal articles, press releases, and related news, with accompanying simulations.Sample Press releases (n=462) on biomedical and health related science issued by 20 leading UK universities in 2011, alongside their associated peer reviewed research papers and news stories (n=668).Main outcome measures Advice to readers to change behaviour, causal statements drawn from correlational research, and inference to humans from animal research that went beyond those in the associated peer reviewed papers.Results 40% (95% confidence interval 33% to 46%) of the press releases contained exaggerated advice, 33% (26% to 40%) contained exaggerated causal claims, and 36% (28% to 46%) contained exaggerated inference to humans from animal research. When press releases contained such exaggeration, 58% (95% confidence interval 48% to 68%), 81% (70% to 93%), and 86% (77% to 95%) of news stories, respectively, contained similar exaggeration, compared with exaggeration rates of 17% (10% to 24%), 18% (9% to 27%), and 10% (0% to 19%) in news when the press releases were not exaggerated. Odds ratios for each category of analysis were 6.5 (95% confidence interval 3.5 to 12), 20 (7.6 to 51), and 56 (15 to 211). At the same time, there was little evidence that exaggeration in press releases increased the uptake of news.Conclusions Exaggeration in news is strongly associated with exaggeration in press releases. Improving the accuracy of academic press releases could represent a key opportunity for reducing misleading health related news.

BackgroundMost women with psychotic disorders and bipolar disorders have children but their pregnancies are at risk of adverse psychiatric and fetal outcome. The extent of modifiable risk factors – both clinical and socio-demographic – is unclear as most studies have used administrative data or recruited from specialist tertiary referral clinics. We therefore aimed to investigate the socio-demographic and clinical characteristics of an epidemiologically representative cohort of pregnant women with affective and non-affective severe mental illness.MethodsWomen with severe mental illness were identified from a large electronic mental health case register in south London, and a data linkage with national maternity Hospital Episode Statistics identified pregnancies in 2007–2011. Data were extracted using structured fields, text searching and natural language processing applications.ResultsOf 456 pregnant women identified, 236 (51.7%) had schizophrenia and related disorders, 220 (48.3%) had affective psychosis or bipolar disorder. Women with schizophrenia and related disorders were younger, less likely to have a partner in pregnancy, more likely to be black, to smoke or misuse substances and had significantly more time in the two years before pregnancy in acute care (inpatient or intensive home treatment) compared with women with affective disorders. Both groups had high levels of domestic abuse in pregnancy (recorded in 18.9%), were from relatively deprived backgrounds and had impaired functioning measured by the Health of the Nation Outcome Scale. Women in the affective group were more likely to stop medication in the first trimester (39% versus 25%) whereas women with non-affective psychoses were more likely to switch medication.ConclusionsA significant proportion of women, particularly those with non-affective psychoses, have modifiable risk factors requiring tailored care to optimize pregnancy outcomes. Mental health professionals need to be mindful of the possibility of pregnancy in women of childbearing age and prescribe and address modifiable risk factors accordingly.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12888-015-0451-8) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

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