is there sponsorship or publication bias

Last reviewed 01/2018

Sponsorship and publication bias

  • consider possible sponsorship and publication bias when appraising a study
  • systematic reviews of clinical studies have found that those sponsored by drug companies were more likely to have outcomes favouring the sponsor than were studies funded by other sources
    • this is not because studies sponsored by industry are of poor quality. However it might reflect that the there was the selection of an inappropriate comparator in the study,or biased interpretation of results
  • industry sponsorship has been also been associated with restrictions on publication and data sharing, i.e. publication bias

Reference:

  1. MeReC Briefing (2005);30:1-7.