Evidence map›Paper›PMID 30782923›Full record

Trial reportBMJ open2019

Effect of different financial competing interest statements on readers' perceptions of clinical educational articles: a randomised controlled trial.

Sara Schroter, Julia Pakpoor, Julie Morris, Mabel Chew, Fiona Godlee

Registry-linked trialAbstract readRandomized Controlled Trial
In one paragraph

Trial report in BMJ open, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. It is linked to trial NCT02548312 (Randomised Controlled Trial to Measure the Effect of Different Financial Competing Interest Statements on Readers' Perceptions of Clinical Educational Articles), which is not on this map. Cited by 1 paper.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
1citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from 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.

2 · The registry

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.

NCT02548312 nacompletednot on this map

Randomised Controlled Trial to Measure the Effect of Different Financial Competing Interest Statements on Readers' Perceptions of Clinical Educational Articles

TypeinterventionalSponsorThe BMJRan2016 to 2016Enrolled1,065ConditionsHealthyArmsVariations of financial competing interest statements
3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

1 citing paper in PubMed.

  1. Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

5 authors.

Sara SchroterThe BMJ, London, UK.ORCID 0000-0002-8791-8564
Julia PakpoorAcademic Clinical Fellow in Public Health, Oxford University Clinical Academic Graduate School, Oxford, UK.
Julie MorrisEducation & Research Centre, University Hospital of South Manchester, Wythenshawe Hospital, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK.
Mabel ChewThe BMJ, London, UK.
Fiona GodleeThe BMJ, London, UK.

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

objectivesTo investigate how different competing interest (COI) statements affect clinical readers' perceptions of education articles.

designRandomised controlled trial. SETTING AND

participantsRandom sample of UK doctors.

interventionsWe created four permutations of each of two clinical reviews (on gout or dyspepsia), which varied only in terms of the COI statement. Volunteers were blinded and randomised to receive one review and asked to complete a questionnaire after reading it. Blinded factorial analyses of variance and analyses of covariance were carried out to assess the influence of each review and type of COI on outcomes. PRIMARY AND SECONDARY OUTCOMES: Confidence in the article's conclusions (primary outcome), its importance, their level of interest in the article and their likelihood to change practice after reading it.

resultsOf 10 889 doctors invited to participate, 1065 (10%) volunteered. Of these, 749 (70%) completed the survey. Analysis of covariance (adjusting for age, sex, job type, years since qualification) showed no significant difference between the groups in participants' confidence in the article (gout: p=0.32, dyspepsia: p=0.78) or their rating of its importance (gout: p=0.09, dyspepsia: p=0.79). For the gout review, participants rated articles with advisory board and consultancies COI as significantly less interesting than those with no COI (p=0.028 with Bonferroni correction). Among participants indicating that they treat the condition and that the article's recommendations differed from their own practice, there was no significant difference in likelihood to change practice between groups (gout: p=0.59, n=59; dyspepsia: p=0.56, n=80).

conclusionsDoctors' confidence in educational articles was not influenced by the COI statements. Further work is required to determine if doctors do not perceive these COIs as important in educational articles or if they do not pay attention to these statements. More meaningful COI disclosure practices may be needed, which highlight context-specific potential sources of bias to readers. TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER: NCT02548312; Results.

Indexed as

Attitude of Health PersonnelBiasBiomedical ResearchConflict of InterestAdultAgedAged, 80 and overDouble-Blind MethodFemaleHumansMaleMiddle AgedPhysiciansSurveys and QuestionnairesUnited KingdomYoung Adultgeneral medicine (see internal medicine)medical journalism

Identifiers

PMID30782923
PMCPMC6377520

What OpenQuestion holds

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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.