Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Meta-Analysis
. 2024 Jan 2;13(1):11.
doi: 10.1186/s13643-023-02404-0.

Publication bias in otorhinolaryngology meta-analyses in 2021

Fatemeh Mohammadian  1 , Shahin Bastaninejad  2 , Shirin Irani  3
Affiliations
Meta-Analysis

Publication bias in otorhinolaryngology meta-analyses in 2021

Fatemeh Mohammadian et al. Syst Rev. .

Abstract

Introduction: One concern in meta-analyses is the presence of publication bias (PB) which leads to the dissemination of inflated results. In this study, we assessed how much the meta-analyses in the field of otorhinolaryngology in 2021 evaluated the presence of PB.

Methods: Six of the most influential journals in the field were selected. A search was conducted, and data were extracted from the included studies. In cases where PB was not assessed by the authors, we evaluated the risk of its presence by designing funnel plots and performing statistical tests.

Results: Seventy-five systematic reviews were included. Fifty-one percent of them used at least one method for assessing the risk of PB, with the visual inspection of a funnel plot being the most frequent method used. Twenty-nine percent of the studies reported a high risk of PB presence. We replicated the results of 11 meta-analyses that did not assess the risk of PB and found that 63.6% were at high risk. We also found that a considerable proportion of the systematic reviews that found a high risk of PB did not take it into consideration when making conclusions and discussing their results.

Discussion: Our results indicate that systematic reviews published in some of the most influential journals in the field do not implement enough measures in their search strategies to reduce the risk of PB, nor do they assess the risk of its presence or take the risk of its presence into consideration when inferring their results.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

All authors declare no potential conflicts of interest regarding this study and its outcomes.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
The flow of study selection
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Number of included systematic reviews (SRs) that searched each bibliographic database and citation index
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Ratio of included systematic reviews (SRs) that assessed publication bias per journal
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

References

    1. DeVito NJ, Goldacre B. Catalogue of bias: publication bias. BMJ Evid Based Med. 2019;24(53–54):20181206. doi: 10.1136/bmjebm-2018-111107. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Bassler D, Mueller KF, Briel M, et al. Bias in dissemination of clinical research findings: structured OPEN framework of what, who and why, based on literature review and expert consensus. BMJ Open. 2016;6(e010024):20160121. doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2015-010024. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Hopewell S, Loudon K, Clarke MJ, et al. Publication bias in clinical trials due to statistical significance or direction of trial results. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2009;2009(MR000006):20090121. doi: 10.1002/14651858.MR000006.pub3. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Higgins JPT, Thomas J, Chandler J, et al. Cochrane handbook for systematic reviews of interventions. 2019. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Jill E, Laura L, Alfred B and Sally M. Finding what works in health care. 2011.

Publication types

LinkOut - more resources