Funding sources and financial disclosures, and their relationship to study outcomes and level of evidence in the Journal of Shoulder and Elbow Surgery
Section snippets
Materials and methods
The print version of JSES, Volume 23, was the source for 244 consecutive articles for calendar year 2014 (January 2014-December 2014). The search excluded review articles or editorials and articles that appeared in the online journal only.
Categoric data were extracted from each article by a single member of the research team. The data collected included location (North America, Europe, or other), research setting (academic or private), LOE, study design, sample size, domain (surgical or
Results
Of the 244 articles reviewed, 44 (18%) were determined to have COI. Geography in which the articles was conducted was statistically significant (P < .001), with the percentage of COI per geographic area calculated as 28% for North America, 9% for Europe, and 5% for other. Surgical articles were also more likely to have COI than nonsurgical articles, with the difference between percentages (23% and 7%, respectively) being statistically significant (P = .002). Articles with a lower LOE (III, IV,
Discussion
Conflicts of interest are often unavoidable in medical research. With the actions taken by JSES and other orthopedic journal editors to adopt common full disclosure policies, the issue at hand has shifted from “How do we avoid conflicts of interest?” to “How do we increase transparency regarding potential conflicts of interest?” Although this study focused more on the effects of COI than incidence, it is worth noting that JSES authors do seem to be ahead of their peers in avoiding COI. Although
Conclusion
We found that JSES articles with COI are neither more likely to have a positive outcome nor a higher LOE than those with no conflicts of interest. Although the χ2 analysis found a statistically significant relationship between COI and study outcomes, the relationship was found to favor articles without COI. This is contrary to previously published analyses that found an association between COI and positive study outcomes.
Disclaimer
The authors, their immediate families, and any research foundations with which they are affiliated have not received any financial payments or other benefits from any commercial entity related to the subject of this article.
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