Unfavourable Research Results More Likely to Be Published

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Unfavourable research results ‘more likely to be published’

July 14, 2016byGary Culliton

Prof Matthias Egger

Available evidence — which might, for example, enable guidelines to be drawn up — is often distorted,Irish Medical Timeshas been told, because unpublished evidence is missing.

“You don’t know what decision would be taken, in regard to recommendations, were the entirety of the evidence available,” according to Prof Matthias Egger, Professor of Epidemiology and Public Health and Director of the Institute for Social and Preventative Medicine at the University of Bern.

Prof Egger spoke last week in Dublin about the reporting of medical research, at a scientific meeting of the Society for Academic Primary Care (SAPC), held annually at venues in Britain and Ireland.

In his talk, entitled ‘Bad science or bad behaviour? The reporting of medical research’, Prof Egger said shelving of studies in which results were not positive was becoming less of a problem now, and studies were much more likely to be registered.

Publication, especially in Phase III trials, was also much more likely than before.

If methods, procedures and the analysis plan were high-quality, a promise — that the paper would then be published — was advisable, in Prof Egger’s view.

When the quality of journals was considered, methodology, for example, was often above average for industry-funded trials in comparison to academic-only trials, he added.

However, replication of results was important for purposes of scientific advance. Thus replication studies were needed to establish that false positive results had not been recorded, concluded Prof Egger.

The meeting, which had attendees from Ireland, the UK, Sweden, Italy, Denmark, New Zealand, Australia, Canada, and the US, was held over three days at Dublin Castle and was hosted by the Department of General Practice of the RCSI and the HRB Centre for Primary Care, also based at the College.

Conference chairProf Tom Fahey, RCSI Professor of General Practice, said: “The annual scientific meeting of SAPC is an invaluable opportunity for clinicians and researchers in primary care to share their work. The academic programme reflects the vitality of research in the area and the importance of good science and academic rigour in the identification of solutions to the myriad of issues seen in primary care.”