SynthesisJournal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry2011
Time-lag bias in trials of pediatric antidepressants: a systematic review and meta-analysis.
Synthesis in Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 2011. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 15 papers, 6 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
15 citing papers in PubMed, 6 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Time to publication for results of clinical trials.The Cochrane database of systematic reviews · 2024Pooled it
- Interventions to Reduce Pediatric Prescribing Errors in Professional Healthcare Settings: A Systematic Review of the Last Decade.Paediatric drugs · 2021Pooled it
- Interventions to Reduce Medication Dispensing, Administration, and Monitoring Errors in Pediatric Professional Healthcare Settings: A Systematic Review.Frontiers in pediatrics · 2021Pooled it
- Pooled it
- Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis: Early Treatment Responses of Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors and Clomipramine in Pediatric Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder.Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry · 2016Pooled it
- Pharmacologic treatment of repetitive behaviors in autism spectrum disorders: evidence of publication bias.Pediatrics · 2012Pooled it
- Flexible nonparametric assessment of time-lag bias in meta-analysis.Biostatistics (Oxford, England) · 2026Article
- Prediction Performance of Earlier Studies for Later Studies in Cochrane Reviews.Journal of evaluation in clinical practice · 2025Article
- Trial sequential analysis involving same-year studies requires careful temporal ordering.Journal of clinical epidemiology · 2025Article
- Registry versus publication: discrepancy of primary outcomes and possible outcome reporting bias in child and adolescent mental health.European child & adolescent psychiatry · 2022Observational
- Need for Speed: Investigating Publication Times and Impact Factors of Plastic Surgery Journals.Plastic and reconstructive surgery. Global open · 2021Article
- Annual Research Review: Defining and treating pediatric treatment-resistant depression.Journal of child psychology and psychiatry, and allied disciplines · 2020Review
- Primary care providers' initial treatment decisions and antidepressant prescribing for adolescent depression.Journal of developmental and behavioral pediatrics : JDBP · 2014Article
- Review
- Delayed publication of clinical trials in cystic fibrosis.Journal of cystic fibrosis : official journal of the European Cystic Fibrosis Society · 2012Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
Abstract
objectiveTo determine whether there is evidence of a time-lag bias in the publication of pediatric antidepressant trials.
methodWe conducted a meta-analysis of published and unpublished randomized placebo-controlled trials of serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SRIs) in subjects less than 18 years of age with major depressive disorder. Our main outcomes were (1) time to publication of positive versus negative trials, and (2) proportion of treatment responders in trials with standard (<3 years after study completion) versus delayed publication.
resultsWe identified 15 randomized, placebo-controlled trials of SRIs for pediatric depression. Trials with negative findings had a significantly longer time to publication (median years ± standard deviation = 4.2 ± 1.9) than trials with positive findings (2.2 ± 0.9; log-rank χ(2) = 4.35, p = .037). The estimated efficacy in trials with standard publication time (number needed to treat = 7, 95% CI = 5-11) was significantly greater than those with delayed publication (17, 95% CI = 9-∞; χ(2) = 4.98, p = .025). The inflation-adjusted impact factor of journals for published trials with positive (15.33 ± 11.01) and negative results (7.54 ± 7.90) did not statistically differ (t = 1.4, df = 10, p = .17).
conclusionsDespite a small number of trials of SRIs for pediatric antidepressants, we found a significant evidence of time-lag bias in the publication of findings. This time-lag bias altered the perceived efficacy of pediatric antidepressants in the medical literature. Time-lag bias is not unique to child psychiatry and reflects a larger problem in scientific publishing.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.