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- Inaccurate author disclosures continue to be an issue in medical publishing. A recent study shows that most authors fail to report, or under-report, \u2018potential conflicts of interest\u2019.<\/li>\n
- The study\u2019s authors call for action from journals to help remove stigma and increase transparency.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
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<\/p>\nThe fully transparent disclosure of relationships between authors of scientific research and other stakeholders is paramount<\/a> to maintaining the credibility of research and upholding public confidence. Nevertheless, inadequacies in reporting practices remain a challenge<\/a>. A recent study<\/a> by Dr Mary Guan and colleagues shed more light on current practices through a detailed comparison<\/a> of author-disclosed \u2018potential conflicts of interest\u2019 versus pharma-reported payments to healthcare professionals.<\/p>\n
What did the research reveal?<\/strong><\/p>\n
Guan et al. reviewed disclosures from the first, second, and final US authors of 150 clinical manuscripts from the top 3 US rheumatology journals, in articles from January 2019 onwards. The researchers then compared this information with entries in the Open Payments<\/a> database. The group\u2019s analyses yielded some surprising findings:<\/p>\n
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- Disclosures were inaccurate in 92% of papers that involved authors deemed to have \u2018potential conflicts of interest\u2019.<\/li>\n
- Of the 135 authors with \u2018potential conflicts of interest\u2019, 87% disclosed inaccurately.<\/li>\n
- Where data were available, the total monetary value of undisclosed potential conflicts was found to be nearing $5.2 million. For those that were \u2018under-disclosed\u2019, the total value was just above $4.1 million.<\/li>\n
- Among the 14 papers that reported clinical trial data, all authors failed to report a potential conflict of interest and in some cases also under-reported potential conflicts.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
So, what can we do to improve reporting accuracy?<\/strong><\/p>\n
In recent years, the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors<\/a>\u00a0moved to using the term \u2018disclosure of relationships<\/a>\u2019 rather than \u2018conflicts of interest\u2019. This was in part to ensure that guidance was simple for authors to follow in a consistent way: all relationships should be disclosed, and readers draw their own conclusions as to which may constitute a potential conflict of interest. Guan et al. point out that perceived stigma surrounding the term \u2018potential conflict of interest\u2019 could also deter authors from accurate reporting, and that a more neutral term may encourage better compliance. Furthermore, they propose that “journals must clearly articulate their reporting expectations and also must clearly emphasise that industry payments do not, a priori, impair the validity of a manuscript”.<\/p>\n
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“Journals must clearly articulate their reporting expectations and also must clearly emphasise that industry payments do not, a priori, impair the validity of a manuscript”.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
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