SynthesisBMC musculoskeletal disorders2015
The effect of journal impact factor, reporting conflicts, and reporting funding sources, on standardized effect sizes in back pain trials: a systematic review and meta-regression.
Synthesis in BMC musculoskeletal disorders, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 9 papers, 4 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
9 citing papers in PubMed, 4 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 17 citations in OpenAlex.
- Pooled it
- Causal inference between rheumatoid arthritis and prostate cancer.Clinical and experimental medicine · 2023Pooled it
- Evaluating beneficial drug effects in a non-interventional setting: a review of effectiveness studies based on Swedish Prescribed Drug Register data.British journal of clinical pharmacology · 2017Pooled it
- Pooled it
- Reporting of the harms from randomized controlled trials for psoriasis: a cross-sectional meta-epidemiological study.Frontiers in medicine · 2026Article
- Quality of clinical studies present in the package inserts of coagulation factors used in the treatment of hemophilia.Einstein (Sao Paulo, Brazil) · 2022Article
- The association between research funding status and clinical research papers' citation impact in Japan: A cross-sectional bibliometric study.Frontiers in medicine · 2022Article
- Quality of reporting in chiropractic mixed methods research: a methodological review protocol.Chiropractic & manual therapies · 2021Article
- Analysis of Funding Source and Spin in the Reporting of Studies of Intravitreal Corticosteroid Therapy for Diabetic Macular Edema: A Systematic Review.Clinical ophthalmology (Auckland, N.Z.) · 2020Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
8 authors at 5 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundLow back pain is a common and costly health complaint for which there are several moderately effective treatments. In some fields there is evidence that funder and financial conflicts are associated with trial outcomes. It is not clear whether effect sizes in back pain trials relate to journal impact factor, reporting conflicts of interest, or reporting funding.
methodsWe performed a systematic review of English-language papers reporting randomised controlled trials of treatments for non-specific low back pain, published between 2006-2012. We modelled the relationship using 5-year journal impact factor, and categories of reported of conflicts of interest, and categories of reported funding (reported none and reported some, compared to not reporting these) using meta-regression, adjusting for sample size, and publication year. We also considered whether impact factor could be predicted by the direction of outcome, or trial sample size.
resultsWe could abstract data to calculate effect size in 99 of 146 trials that met our inclusion criteria. Effect size is not associated with impact factor, reporting of funding source, or reporting of conflicts of interest. However, explicitly reporting 'no trial funding' is strongly associated with larger absolute values of effect size (adjusted β=1.02 (95 % CI 0.44 to 1.59), P=0.001). Impact factor increases by 0.008 (0.004 to 0.012) per unit increase in trial sample size (P<0.001), but does not differ by reported direction of the LBP trial outcome (P=0.270).
conclusionsThe absence of associations between effect size and impact factor, reporting sources of funding, and conflicts of interest reflects positively on research and publisher conduct in the field. Strong evidence of a large association between absolute magnitude of effect size and explicit reporting of 'no funding' suggests authors of unfunded trials are likely to report larger effect sizes, notwithstanding direction. This could relate in part to quality, resources, and/or how pragmatic a trial is.
Indexed as
Identifiers
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.