Evaluation of Spin in the Abstracts of Emergency Medicine Randomized Controlled Trials

Reynolds-Vaughn, Victoria; Riddle, Jonathan; Brown, Jamin; Schiesel, Michael; Wayant, Cole; Vassar, Matt

doi:10.1016/j.annemergmed.2019.03.011

Cited by 33 publications

(36 citation statements)

References 26 publications

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“…A recent study found high rates of spin in the abstracts of SRs evaluating physiotherapy interventions for low‐back pain 23 . This study adds to the findings of other works and suggests a need for improvement in the reporting quality of RCTs and SRs 8–13 . Of interest, journals with higher impact factors were less likely to contain spin in the abstracts of SRs.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 56%

“…Abstracts of SRs should present concise and unbiased interpretations of their results; however, authors may, either intentionally or unintentionally, add or omit information to make results appear more favorable, a concept known as spin. Spin has been defined previously as “specific reporting that could distort the interpretation of results and mislead readers.” 7 Previous studies have described the prevalence of spin in RCTs in several areas of medicine 8–13 . Evidence also suggests that the presence of spin in the abstracts of RCTs can influence clinicians' interpretation and application of the study's results.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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An Evaluation of the Presence of Spin in the Abstracts of Tonsillectomy Systematic Reviews

et al. 2020

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Objectives/Hypothesis Spin—the practice of adding or omitting information intentionally or unintentionally to make the results of a study more favorable—may influence clinical decision making, especially when present in study abstracts. Here, we quantify and characterize the presence of spin in the abstracts of systematic reviews regarding tonsillectomy. Methods This study is an analysis of systematic review abstracts. Searches were conducted on September 23, 2019 on PubMed and Embase using the advanced search feature to retrieve systematic reviews regarding tonsillectomies. The nine most severe forms of spin were then evaluated. Spin was classified by two investigators in parallel, with each blinded to the classifications of the other. Study characteristics were also recorded in duplicate. Consensus meetings between investigators were held to resolve disagreements. Results In the 85 included systematic reviews, at least one form of spin was present in 44.7% (38/85) of abstracts. Journals with higher impact factors were less likely to contain spin in the abstracts of systematic reviews (point biserial correlation coefficient of −0.30). No statistically significant associations were found between the presence of spin and intervention type (P = .56) or adherence to Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta‐Analyses (P = .08); however, there was a significant association between spin and funding source (P = .03). Conclusions Spin was common in the abstracts of our sample of tonsillectomy systematic reviews. Researchers, clinicians, and peer reviewers could benefit from learning to recognize spin in medical literature. Further research is needed into the effects of spin on clinical decision making. Level of Evidence NA Laryngoscope, 131:E727–E731, 2021

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 56%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An Evaluation of the Presence of Spin in the Abstracts of Tonsillectomy Systematic Reviews

et al. 2020

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“…For example, a person has a 70% chance of exhibiting behavior X when they are faced with situation Y. Stanovich states that "virtually all of the facts and relationships that have been uncovered by the science of psychology are stated in terms of probabilities" (p. 155). If this is true, then it might be a useful lesson that could drive change in the types of misleading prescriptions psychologists and other human scientists are prone to in reporting conclusions from their research (Boutron, 2020;Reynolds-Vaughn et al, 2020). We, however, take issue with this statement.…”

Section: Toward Improved Practicementioning

confidence: 99%

Statements About the Pervasiveness of Behavior Require Data About the Pervasiveness of Behavior

Speelman

McGann

2020

Front. Psychol.

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Despite recent close attention to issues related to the reliability of psychological research (e.g., the replication crisis), issues of the validity of this research have not been considered to the same extent. This paper highlights an issue that calls into question the validity of the common research practice of studying samples of individuals, and using sample-based statistics to infer generalizations that are applied not only to the parent population, but to individuals. The lack of ergodicity in human data means that such generalizations are not justified. This problem is illustrated with respect to two common scenarios in psychological research that raise questions for the sorts of theories that are typically proposed to explain human behavior and cognition. The paper presents a method of data analysis that requires closer attention to the range of behaviors exhibited by individuals in our research to determine the pervasiveness of effects observed in sample data. Such an approach to data analysis will produce results that are more in tune with the types of generalizations typical in reports of psychological research than mainstream analysis methods.

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“…In a study of topical prostaglandin research in ophthalmology, the conclusion presented in the abstract was not consistent with the statistical results in 18 of 29 of the commercially funded studies and none of the 10 non-commercial studies (Alasbali et al 2009). In a review of emergency medicine clinical trial abstracts with no significant differences, a positive spin (i.e., selective reporting of significant differences, promotion of non-significant differences, favorable interpretation of non-significant results, or claimed benefit in spite of no significant difference) was present in 15 of 21 industry-funded trials compared with 35 of 93 non-industry funded trials (Reynolds-Vaughn et al 2019). These are 2 of the many studies presenting evidence that industry-funded trials are associated with positive, proindustry study findings (Kjaergard and Als-Nielsen 2002, Bhandari et al 2004, Alasbali et al 2009, Boutron et al 2010, Lundh et al 2018, Lerchenmueller et al 2019, Arthur et al 2020.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Emotional tones in scientific writing: comparison of commercially funded studies and non-commercially funded orthopedic studies

et al. 2020

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Background and purpose — There is ongoing debate as to whether commercial funding influences reporting of medical studies. We asked: Is there a difference in reported tones between abstracts, introductions, and discussions of orthopedic journal studies that were commercially funded and those that were not commercially funded? Methods — We conducted a systematic PubMed search to identify commercially funded studies published in 20 orthopedic journals between January 1, 2000 and December 1, 2019. We identified commercial funding of studies by including in our search the names of 10 medical device companies with the largest revenue in 2019. Commercial funding was designated when either the study or 1 or more of the authors received funding from a medical device company directly related to the content of the study. We matched 138 commercially funded articles 1 to 1 with 138 non-commercially funded articles with the same study design, published in the same journal, within a time range of 5 years. The IBM Watson Tone Analyzer was used to determine emotional tones (anger, fear, joy, and sadness) and language style (analytical, confident, and tentative). Results — For abstract and introduction sections, we found no differences in reported tones between commercially funded and non-commercially funded studies. Fear tones (non-commercially funded studies 5.1%, commercially funded studies 0.7%, p = 0.04), and analytical tones (non-commercially funded studies 95%, commercially funded studies 88%, p = 0.03) were more common in discussions of studies that were not commercially funded. Interpretation — Commercially funded studies have comparable tones to non-commercially funded studies in the abstract and introduction. In contrast, the discussion of non-commercially funded studies demonstrated more fear and analytical tones, suggesting them to be more tentative, accepting of uncertainty, and dispassionate. As text analysis tools become more sophisticated and mainstream, it might help to discern commercial bias in scientific reports.

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Evaluation of Spin in the Abstracts of Emergency Medicine Randomized Controlled Trials

Cited by 33 publications

References 26 publications

An Evaluation of the Presence of Spin in the Abstracts of Tonsillectomy Systematic Reviews

An Evaluation of the Presence of Spin in the Abstracts of Tonsillectomy Systematic Reviews

Statements About the Pervasiveness of Behavior Require Data About the Pervasiveness of Behavior

Emotional tones in scientific writing: comparison of commercially funded studies and non-commercially funded orthopedic studies

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