Empirical Evidence for Selective Reporting of Outcomes in Randomized Trials.¶
Chan, A., Hróbjartsson, A., Haahr, M. T., Gøtzsche, P. C., & Altman, D. G. (2004). Empirical Evidence for Selective Reporting of Outcomes in Randomized Trials. JAMA, 291(20), 2457-2465.
Cited by¶
2 citations across 2 artifacts.
Each citation links to the sentence it supports in the citing article.
Primes¶
- Objective Creep
- The identical structure governs clinical-trial design: a study powered for one primary endpoint accumulates secondary endpoints and sub-group analyses, each scientifically reasonable, until the primary endpoint is under-powered and the trial answers none of its questions cleanly; pre-registration with a locked primary endpoint and an explicit cap on secondary aims is the demobilization-criterion analogue.
This sourceDocuments how trials accumulate and shift secondary endpoints, under-powering or obscuring the primary aim.
Supported in partVerified against the work's full text
Chan et al. support registering trials and publishing protocols with prespecified primary outcomes, but do not document secondary endpoints accumulating until the primary is under-powered.
“planned trials should be registered and protocols should be made publicly available prior to trial”
- The identical structure governs clinical-trial design: a study powered for one primary endpoint accumulates secondary endpoints and sub-group analyses, each scientifically reasonable, until the primary endpoint is under-powered and the trial answers none of its questions cleanly; pre-registration with a locked primary endpoint and an explicit cap on secondary aims is the demobilization-criterion analogue.
Domain-specific¶
- Cherry Picking
- Structural remedies follow from the diagnosis: pre-registration of outcomes (constrains selective reporting and makes departures detectable), systematic review (fixes selective citation), rules of professional conduct requiring disclosure of directly adverse controlling authority (fixes selective legal argument), and adversarial presentation formats (require engagement with counter-evidence).
This sourceEstablishes the empirical basis for the first remedy: across 102 randomised trials compared with their protocols, about half of efficacy and two thirds of harm outcomes were incompletely reported, statistically significant outcomes were reported far more fully than non-significant ones, and 62% of trials had a primary outcome changed, introduced or omitted - the departures that make pre-registration both a constraint and a detection mechanism.
Supported in partVerified against the source
- Structural remedies follow from the diagnosis: pre-registration of outcomes (constrains selective reporting and makes departures detectable), systematic review (fixes selective citation), rules of professional conduct requiring disclosure of directly adverse controlling authority (fixes selective legal argument), and adversarial presentation formats (require engagement with counter-evidence).
Verification¶
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