Avoidable waste of research related to outcome planning and reporting in clinical trials.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Inadequate planning, selective reporting, and incomplete reporting of outcomes in randomized controlled trials (RCTs) contribute to the problem of waste of research. We aimed to describe such a waste and to examine to what extent this waste could be avoided.

Methods

This research-on-research study was based on RCTs included in Cochrane reviews with a summary of findings (SoF) table. We considered the outcomes reported in the SoF tables as surrogates for important outcomes for patients and other decision makers. We used a three-step approach. (1) First, in each review, we identified, for each important outcome, RCTs that were excluded from the corresponding meta-analysis. (2) Then, for these RCTs, we systematically searched for registrations and protocols to distin

SUBMITTER: Yordanov Y 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5994653 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature