Trial reportBMC medicine2019
Three randomized controlled trials evaluating the impact of "spin" in health news stories reporting studies of pharmacologic treatments on patients'/caregivers' interpretation of treatment benefit.
Trial report in BMC medicine, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. An erratum has been issued. It is linked to 3 registered trials, which are not on this map. Cited by 21 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.
Interpretation of Health News Items Reporting Results of Pre-clinical Studies With or Without Spin: A Randomized Controlled Trial Among English-speaking Patients
Interpretation of Health News Items Reporting Results of Phase I/II (Non-randomized) Trials With or Without Spin: A Randomized Controlled Trial Among English-speaking Population
Interpretation of Health News Items Reporting Results of Randomized Controlled Trials With or Without Spin: A Randomized Controlled Trial Among English-speaking Patients
Who cites it
21 citing papers in PubMed, 4 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Groundhog Day in the emergency department: A systematic review of 20 years of news coverage in Australia.PloS one · 2023Pooled it
- Misleading Reporting (Spin) in Noninferiority Randomized Clinical Trials in Oncology With Statistically Not Significant Results: A Systematic Review.JAMA network open · 2021Pooled it
- Quality of information in news media reports about the effects of health interventions: Systematic review and meta-analyses.F1000Research · 2021Pooled it
- Artificial intelligence versus clinicians: systematic review of design, reporting standards, and claims of deep learning studies.BMJ (Clinical research ed.) · 2020Pooled it
- Spin reporting is common in pilot and feasibility trials in hip and knee arthroplasty: a methodological analysis of a cross-sectional sample.Pilot and feasibility studies · 2026Article
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- Caught in the Web of Words: Do LLMs Fall for Spin in Medical Literature?Proceedings of machine learning research · 2025Article
- Spin in the Titles and Abstracts of Allergy and Immunology Randomized Controlled Trials With Nonsignificant Outcomes.Cureus · 2025Review
- Spin in dental publications: a scoping review.Brazilian oral research · 2024Article
- Abstracts of randomized controlled trials in pediatric dentistry: reporting quality and spin.BMC medical research methodology · 2023Article
- Teaching critical thinking about health information and choices in secondary schools: human-centred design of digital resources.F1000Research · 2023Article
- Breast Implant-Associated Anaplastic Large Cell Lymphoma: A Google Trends Analysis.Aesthetic plastic surgery · 2022Article
- Women's attitudes to the use of AI image readers: a case study from a national breast screening programme.BMJ health & care informatics · 2021Article
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- Defining and detecting fake news in health and medicine reporting.Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine · 2020Article
- Aspirin Use and Awareness for Cardiovascular Disease Prevention Among Hispanics: Prevalence and Associations with Health Behavior Beliefs.Journal of community health · 2020Article
- Improving open and rigorous science: ten key future research opportunities related to rigor, reproducibility, and transparency in scientific research.F1000Research · 2020Article
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Corrections and comments
- Erratum issued
Authors and funding
8 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundNews stories represent an important source of information. We aimed to evaluate the impact of "spin" (i.e., misrepresentation of study results) in health news stories reporting studies of pharmacologic treatments on patients'/caregivers' interpretation of treatment benefit.
methodsWe conducted three two-arm, parallel-group, Internet-based randomized trials (RCTs) comparing the interpretation of news stories reported with or without spin. Each RCT considered news stories reporting a different type of study: (1) pre-clinical study, (2) phase I/II non-RCT, and (3) phase III/IV RCT. For each type of study, we identified news stories reported with spin that had earned mention in the press. Two versions of the news stories were used: the version with spin and a version rewritten without spin. Participants were patients/caregivers involved in Inspire, a large online community of more than one million patients/caregivers. The primary outcome was participants' interpretation assessed by one specific question "What do you think is the probability that 'treatment X' would be beneficial to patients?" (scale, 0 [very unlikely] to 10 [very likely]).
resultsFor each RCT, 300 participants were randomly assigned to assess a news story with spin (n = 150) or without spin (n = 150), and 900 participants assessed a news story. Participants were more likely to consider that the treatment would be beneficial to patients when the news story was reported with spin. The mean (SD) score for the primary outcome for abstracts reported with and without spin for pre-clinical studies was 7.5 (2.2) versus 5.8 (2.8) (mean difference [95% CI] 1.7 [1.0-2.3], p < 0.001); for phase I/II non-randomized trials, 7.6 (2.2) versus 5.8 (2.7) (mean difference 1.8 [1.0-2.5], p < 0.001); and for phase III/IV RCTs, 7.2 (2.3) versus 4.9 (2.8) (mean difference 2.3 [1.4-3.2], p < 0.001).
conclusionsSpin in health news stories reporting studies of pharmacologic treatments affects patients'/caregivers' interpretation.
trial registrationClinicalTrials.gov, NCT03094078 , NCT03094104 , NCT03095586.
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.