'Spin' found in over half of
clinical trial abstracts published in top psychiatry journals
'Spin'—exaggerating the clinical significance of a particular
treatment without the statistics to back it up—is apparent in more than half
of clinical trial abstracts published in top psychology and psychiatry
journals, finds a review of relevant research in BMJ Evidence Based
Medicine.
The findings raise concerns about the potential impact this
might be having on treatment decisions, as the evidence to date suggests
that abstract information alone is capable of changing doctors' minds, warn
the study authors.
Randomised controlled trials serve as the gold standard of
evidence, and as such, can have a major impact on clinical care. But although researchers are
encouraged to report their findings comprehensively, in practice they are free
to interpret the results as they wish.
In an abstract, which is supposed to summarise the entire study,
researchers may be rather selective with the information they choose to
highlight, so misrepresenting or 'spinning' the findings.
To find out how common spin might be in abstracts, the study
authors trawled the research database PubMed for randomised controlled trials
of psychiatric and behavioural treatments published between 2012 and 2017 in
six top psychology and psychiatry journals.
They reviewed only those trials (116) in which the primary
results had not been statistically significant, and used a previously published
definition of spin to see how often researchers had 'spun' their findings.
They found evidence of spin in the abstracts of more than half
(65; 56%) of the published trials. This included titles (2%), results sections
(21%), and conclusion sections (49%).
In 17 trials (15%), spin was identified in both the results and
conclusion sections of the abstract.
Spin was more common in trials that compared a particular
drug/behavioural approach with a dummy (placebo) intervention or usual care.
Industry funding was not associated with a greater likelihood of
spinning the findings: only 10 of the 65 clinical trials in which spin was
evident had some level of industry funding.
The study authors accept that their findings may not be widely
applicable to clinical trials published in all psychiatry and psychology
journals, and despite the use of objective criteria to define spin, inevitably,
their assessments would have been subjective.
Nevertheless, they point out: "Researchers have an ethical
obligation to honestly and clearly report the results of their research. Adding spin to the abstract of an article may
mislead physicians who are attempting to draw conclusions about a treatment for
patients. Most physicians read only the article abstract the majority of the
time."
They add: "Those who write clinical trial manuscripts know
that they have a limited amount of time and space in which to capture the
attention of the reader. Positive results are more likely to be published, and
many manuscript authors have turned to questionable reporting practices in
order to beautify their results."