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. 2020 May 11;10(5):e035633.
doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2019-035633.

Reporting of drug trial funding sources and author financial conflicts of interest in Cochrane and non-Cochrane meta-analyses: a cross-sectional study

Kimberly Turner  1   2 , Andrea Carboni-Jiménez  1   2 , Carla Benea  1   2 , Katharine Elder  1   2 , Brooke Levis  1   2 , Jill Boruff  3 , Michelle Roseman  4 , Lisa Bero  5 , Joel Lexchin  6 , Erick H Turner  7 , Andrea Benedetti  8 , Brett D Thombs  9   2
Affiliations

Reporting of drug trial funding sources and author financial conflicts of interest in Cochrane and non-Cochrane meta-analyses: a cross-sectional study

Kimberly Turner et al. BMJ Open. .

Abstract

Objective: To (1) investigate the extent to which recently published meta-analyses report trial funding, author-industry financial ties and author-industry employment from included randomised controlled trials (RCTs), comparing Cochrane and non-Cochrane meta-analyses; (2) examine characteristics of meta-analyses independently associated with reporting funding sources of included RCTs; and (3) compare reporting among recently published Cochrane meta-analyses to Cochrane reviews published in 2010.

Design: Review of consecutive sample of recently published meta-analyses.

Data sources: MEDLINE database via PubMed searched on 19 October 2018.

Eligibility criteria for selecting articles: We selected the 250 most recent meta-analyses listed in PubMed that included a documented search of at least one database, statistically combined results from ≥2 RCTs and evaluated the effects of a drug or class of drugs.

Results: 90 of 107 (84%) Cochrane meta-analyses reported funding sources for some or all included trials compared with 21 of 143 (15%) non-Cochrane meta-analyses, a difference of 69% (95% CI 59% to 77%). Percent reporting was also higher for Cochrane meta-analyses compared with non-Cochrane meta-analyses for trial author-industry financial ties (44% versus 1%; 95% CI for difference 33% to 52%) and employment (17% versus 1%; 95% CI for difference 9% to 24%). In multivariable analysis, compared with Cochrane meta-analyses, the odds ratio (OR) for reporting trial funding was ≤0.11 for all other journal category and impact factor combinations. Compared with Cochrane reviews from 2010, reporting of funding sources of included RCTs among recently published Cochrane meta-analyses improved by 54% (95% CI 42% to 63%), and reporting of trial author-industry financial ties and employment improved by 37% (95% CI 26% to 47%) and 10% (95% CI 2% to 19%).

Conclusions: Reporting of trial funding sources, trial author-industry financial ties and trial author-industry employment in Cochrane meta-analyses has improved since 2010 and is higher than in non-Cochrane meta-analyses.

Keywords: epidemiology; medical ethics; statistics & research methods.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing interests: All authors have completed the ICMJE uniform disclosure form at www.icmje.org/coi_disclosure.pdf. Dr. Bero disclosed that she is Senior Editor, Cochrane Public Health and Health Systems, for which the University of Sydney receives remuneration. Dr. Thombs disclosed that he is a content editor with the Cochrane Common Mental Disorders review group (no remuneration received). All other authors declared: no support from any organisation for the submitted work; no financial relationships with any organisations that might have an interest in the submitted work in the previous three years; no other relationships or activities that could appear to have influenced the submitted work.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Flow diagram of selection of eligible meta-analyses.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Percentage of recently published Cochrane and non-Cochrane meta-analyses and 2010 Cochrane systematic reviews that reported included trial funding source, author–industry financial ties and author–industry employment for some or all included trials.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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