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An-Wen Chan and associates,1 in their evaluation of outcome reporting bias in 48 randomized controlled trials funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), found that a high number (median 26) of outcomes were declared in each protocol, but not all of these outcomes were reported in the published papers; in addition, statistically significant efficacy outcomes had a higher likelihood of being reported than nonsignificant ones.
Twenty of the 48 studies were jointly funded by industry and CIHR. It would be of interest to know whether the results were consistent between the 2 subgroups of studies, those funded by government only and those cofunded by industry.
This work shows that research promoted through public funding is not free from bias. The explanation of outcome reporting bias is challenging. In particular, further investigation is needed to identify the factors that affect selection of outcomes between a study's protocol and the published report of the study.
Footnotes
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Competing interests: None declared.
Reference
- 1.