ArticleBMC medical research methodology2024
Exploring trial publication and research waste in COVID-19 randomised trials of hydroxychloroquine, corticosteroids, and vitamin D: a meta-epidemiological cohort study.
Article in BMC medical research methodology, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
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
4 citing papers in PubMed, 6 citations in OpenAlex.
- Barriers and enablers for publishing results of randomized trials: a cross-sectional survey of principal investigators in sub-Saharan Africa.Research integrity and peer review · 2026Article
- Lack of harmonisation in immunological data: challenges in synthesising data during the COVID-19 pandemic.EBioMedicine · 2026Review
- Article
- Comparative analysis of COVID-19 responses in Japan and Africa: diet, phytochemicals, vitamin D, and gut microbiota in reducing mortality-A systematic review and meta-analysis.Frontiers in nutrition · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundThe global research response to the COVID-19 pandemic was impressive, but also led to an infodemic and considerable research waste. Registered, but unpublished trials added to this noise. We aimed to determine the proportion of registered randomised trials of common COVID-19 treatments that were published and to describe the characteristics of these trials to examine the association between trial characteristics, publication status and research waste.
methodsThis meta-epidemiological cohort study used a sample of randomised trials of corticosteroids, hydroxychloroquine or vitamin D as treatments for COVID-19, registered between 1 November 2019 and 31 December 2021 and available via the WHO ICTRP portal. We searched for the trials' published results up to 20 October 2022. We extracted the trial characteristics, analysing with descriptive statistics. We performed univariate logistic regression to examine the association between trials' characteristics and publication status, followed by multiple logistic regression using significant characteristics to assess the association between trial characteristics and publication status.
resultsWe identified 357 eligible trials on ICTRP. Of these, 107 (30%) had published or made their results available publicly by 20 October 2022, while 250 (70%) had not been published or shared their results publicly. Multiple logistic regression analysis showed that a larger target sample size was a significant positive predictor of publication with target sample sizes above 300 almost tripling the odds of publication (aOR: 2.75, 95% CI: 1.35 to 5.62).
conclusionsLess than one third of registered trials made their results public and our findings identified that many trialists had not updated their trial registry entry with the trial status, results or both. Failure to share trial results publicly is a disservice to patients, clinicians and policy makers and adds to research waste.
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.