Use of behavioural change taxonomies in systematic reviews and meta-analyses regarding obesity management.

We investigated the prevalence of behavioural change taxonomies in systematic reviews and meta-analyses related to obesity management. In addition, we analysed the funding sources, author conflicts of interest statements, risk of bias, and favorability of the results in such studies to determine if there was a relationship between methodological quality and taxonomy use. We searched several databases including MEDLINE, Epistemonikos, Cochrane EDSR, Pubmed and Embase for systematic reviews and meta-analyses regarding the behavioural treatment of obesity. Screening and data extraction was performed in a masked, duplicate fashion. We performed statistical analyses to determine any significant association between use of taxonomy and study characteristics. Fifteen (of 186; 8.06%) systematic reviews used a taxonomy-nine used the BCTTv1, three used OXFAB, two used the CALO-RE and one used "Taxonomy of choice architecture techniques." Most interventions that referenced a taxonomy were self-mediated (6/60, 10%). Behavioural change taxonomies were mentioned in 10 (of 87, 11.49%) studies with a public funding source. Of the studies with favourable results, 14 studies (of 181, 7.73%) referred to a taxonomy. We found no statistically significant relationships between use of taxonomy and study characteristics. We found that systematic reviews regarding the management of obesity rarely mention a behavioural change taxonomy. Given the global burden of obesity, it is crucial that behavioural change techniques are reproducible and translatable. We recommend that researchers look further into how taxonomies affect the quality and reproducibility of behavioural interventions in an effort to improve patient outcomes.

Intervention reporting of clinical trials published in high-impact cardiology journals: effect of the TIDieR checklist and guide.

BACKGROUND: Randomised controlled trials (RCTs) provide the highest-level of evidence among primary research in cardiovascular medicine. Yet, even the best trial may be less useful if it fails to provide an accurate means of reproducibility. Unfortunately, discrepancies in the standards of trial reporting have been persistent in previous trials. The Template for Intervention Description and Replication (TIDieR) checklist aims to improve research efficacy by setting standards for quality intervention reporting and reproducibility. The goal of this study was to assess adherence to the TIDieR checklist among RCTs published in cardiovascular health journals. We also compared the quality of intervention reporting before and after the publication of TIDieR. METHODS: This cross-sectional, methodological study analysed 101 trials published within high-impact cardiology journals. Our primary objective was to assess overall adherence to the TIDieR checklist. Our secondary objective was to use an interrupted time-series analysis to determine if intervention reporting increased following the publication of TIDieR in March 2014. Additionally, we used generalised estimating equations to identify trial characteristics associated with intervention reporting. RESULTS: Trials in our sample reported 8.6/12 TIDieR checklist items, on average. The most under-reported items were those for describing the expertise of the interventionists and for describing the location of the intervention. CONCLUSION: Improved outcome reporting and intervention reproducibility among RCTs are greatly needed in cardiovascular medicine. Clinicians and researchers should advocate for the ethical publication of complete, translatable and replicable clinical research results.

Evaluation of Spin in the Abstracts of Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses of Treatments for Glaucoma.

PURPOSE: Spin - the misrepresentation of the study's actual findings - carries the ability to distort a reader's perception of a treatments' full benefits and risks. Recent studies have suggested that spin is common in abstracts of randomized controlled trials and systematic reviews focused on treatments for a variety of medical disorders. Therefore, our primary objective was to evaluate the prevalence of spin in the abstracts of systematic reviews and meta-analyses related to glaucoma treatments. We further assessed whether specific study characteristics were associated with spin, including the methodological quality of a study. PATIENTS AND METHODS: We used a cross-sectional study design searching MEDLINE and Embase databases all for systematic reviews and meta-analyses focused on glaucoma treatments. Each abstract was assessed for the nine most severe - severity determined by likelihood of distorting a reader's perception - types of spin that occur in systematic review abstracts. The screening and data extraction was performed in a duplicate, masked fashion. The methodological quality of each review was assessed using A MeaSurement Tool to Assess Systematic Reviews (AMSTAR-2) instrument. To evaluate relationships between spin, AMSTAR-2 appraisals, and other study characteristics, we used unadjusted odds ratios and Fisher's exact test. RESULTS: Only three of the 102 abstracts contained spin, with spin type 5 being the most prevalent. No abstracts contained spin types 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, or 8, and no association was found between the presence of spin in an abstract and any particular study characteristic. Using the AMSTAR-2 quality appraisal instrument, 35 (34.3%) of the studies received a methodological quality rating as high, 42 (41.2%) as moderate, 11 (10.8%) as low, and 14 (13.7%) as critically low. CONCLUSIONS: We found that's pin is present in only a small proportion of systematic reviews and meta-analyses covering the treatment of glaucoma. In comparison to studies in other fields of medicine, ophthalmology appears to be a leader in publishing systematic reviews and meta-analyses with low rates of spin occurring in the abstract.

Analysis of practices to promote reproducibility and transparency in anaesthesiology research.

INTRODUCTION: Reliable, high-quality research is essential to the field of anaesthesiology. Reproducibility and transparency have been investigated in the biomedical domain and in the social sciences, with both lacking to provide necessary information to reproduce the study findings. In this study, we investigated 14 indicators of reproducibility in anaesthesiology research. METHODS: We used the National Library of Medicine catalogue to search for all anaesthesiology journals that are MEDLINE indexed and provide English texts. PubMed was searched with the list of journals to identify all publications from January 1, 2014 to December 31, 2018. We randomly sampled 450 publications that fit the inclusion criteria for our analysis. Data extraction was then conducted in a blinded, duplicate fashion using a pilot-tested Google form. RESULTS: The PubMed search of these journals identified 171 441 publications, with 28 310 being within the time frame. From the 450 publications sampled, 444 full-text publications were accessible. The majority of publications analysed did not have a statement regarding availability of data (164/188), analysis scripts (187/188), or study materials (160/188). CONCLUSIONS: Anaesthesiology research needs to improve indicators of reproducibility and transparency. By making research publicly available and improving accessibility to detailed study components, primary research can be reproduced in subsequent studies and help contribute to the development of new practice guidelines.