| Ref ID | 797 |
| First Author | A. Wise |
| Journal | JOURNAL OF GLAUCOMA |
| Year Of Publishing | 2021 |
| URL | https://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/wk/jglau/2021/00000030/00000004/art00019 |
| Keywords |
• Disclosure • Sponsorship bias • Allegiance • Author • Ophthalmology • Non-Cochrane reviews |
| Problem(s) |
• Conflict of interest statement or disclosures for review authors missing • Financial conflicts of interest of review authors |
| Article Type | Empirical |
| Article Subtype | Meta-epidemiological analysis |
| First Author Country | United States |
| Aim | To assess whether authors with a conflict of interest were more likely to reach favourable conclusions from systematic reviews of glaucoma indexed in MEDLINE and Embase between September 1, 2016 and June 2, 2020. |
| Level of Investigation | Analytical |
| Summary of Findings | From 26 included systematic reviews of glaucoma indexed in MEDLINE and Embase between September 1, 2016 and June 2, 2020. 9 (35%) were conducted by at least 1 author with an undisclosed conflict of interest. Of those 9, 3 (33%) reported results favouring the treatment group, and 5 (56%) reported conclusions favouring the treatment group. Of the 17 systematic reviews with no conflicted authors, 1 (6%) reported results favouring the treatment group, and 2 (12%) reported conclusions favouring the treatment group. The Fisher exact tests demonstrated that these differences held a statistically significant association between author conflicts and the favourability of the reviews’ conclusions toward the treatment group (P=0.04). |
| Number of systematic reviews included | 26 |
| Number of eligible systematic reviews assessed | 26 |
| Treatment impacted | Yes |
| Treatment impacted description | Aimed to determine whether the presence of 1 of more conflicts was associated with more favourable results and conclusions in systematic reviews of glaucoma interventions. |
| Interpretation impacted | Yes |
| Interpretation impacted description | The study found that systematic reviews conducted by 1 or more authors with conflicts of interest were more likely than those with no conflicted authors to draw favourable conclusions about the investigated intervention. |