Adherence to conflicts of interest policy in Cochrane reviews where authors are also editorial board members: A cross-sectional analysis

Ref ID 791
First Author R.L. Pacheco
Journal RESEARCH SYNTHESIS METHODS
Year Of Publishing 2022
URL https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/jrsm.1507?casa_token=yYdbdaAW1tQAAAAA:uStCivZDWHJbDfny6ZOfuk1bch5EqDZYM8cEqMhkYO2BCwJbOxUNPwcLAvpjAN8vgzZ05K0CDBE35dWs
Keywords Cochrane
Author
Allegiance
Disclosure
Problem(s) Conflict of interest statement or disclosures for review authors missing
Non-financial conflicts of interest of review authors
Weaknesses identified in some Cochrane reviews
Number of systematic reviews included 260
Summary of Findings From 260 published Cochrane reviews in issues 1 to 6 from 2019 of the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. 133 (51.2%, 133/260) of Cochrane reviews had at least one author that was also listed as an editor in the Cochrane Review Group. Of these, only five (3.8%, 5/133) appropriately declared the conflict according to Cochrane policy. In 6.5% (17/133) Cochrane Reviews, the contact author had a leading editorial position within the Cochrane Review Group and in only four of 17 was this declared according to Cochrane policy. No Cochrane review with the contact author who also had a leading editorial position described methods to prevent any potential issues related to this scenario during the editorial process in accordance with Cochrane policy.
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