Reporting funding source or conflict of interest in abstracts of randomized controlled trials, no evidence of a large impact on general practitioners' confidence in conclusions, a three-arm randomized controlled trial.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Systematic reporting of funding sources is recommended in the CONSORT Statement for abstracts. However, no specific recommendation is related to the reporting of conflicts of interest (CoI). The objective was to compare physicians' confidence in the conclusions of abstracts of randomized controlled trials of pharmaceutical treatment indexed in PubMed.

Methods

We planned a three-arm parallel-group randomized trial. French general practitioners (GPs) were invited to participate and were blinded to the study's aim. We used a representative sample of 75 abstracts of pharmaceutical industry-funded randomized controlled trials published in 2010 and indexed in PubMed. Each abstract was standardized and reported in three formats: 1) no mention of the funding source or CoI

SUBMITTER: Buffel du Vaure C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4022327 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature