When trial authors write Cochrane Reviews: competing interests need to be better managed

Ref ID 121
First Author M. Kliner
Journal COCHRANE DATABASE OF SYSTEMATIC REVIEWS
Year Of Publishing 2014
URL https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.ED000089/full
Keywords Cochrane
Author
Allegiance
General medical
Problem(s) Financial conflicts of interest of review authors
Non-financial conflicts of interest of review authors
Conflict of interest statement or disclosures for review authors missing
Number of systematic reviews included 197
Summary of Findings 14% (28/197) of Cochrane reviews had one or more authors who were also authors on trials of included studies. Of these 28 reviews, 68%(19/28) recorded the competing interest in the methods section or as one of the declarations of potential conflicts of interest. Eighty-two percent (23/28) comply with the Cochrane guidance at the time, in that eligibility and risk of bias were independently assessed by a second author not involved in the studies. However, in eight studies, the dual author was one of the two people extracting data. This means only 53%(15/28) of recent reviews will actually fully comply with the most recently issued Cochrane guidance.
Did the article find that the problem(s) led to qualitative changes in interpretation of the results? Not Applicable
Are the methods of the article described in enough detail to replicate the study? No