Article type
Abstract
Background
Conflicts of interest in medical research continuously represent a risk of an unduly influenced research agenda and how studies are conducted and reported. However, conflicts of interest are not unique to medicine, and a broader understanding of how conflicts of interest are addressed by other scholarly disciplines may allow us to learn from diversity and achieve better fit-for-purpose policies.
Objectives
To investigate and analyze how conflicts of interest in research are addressed across selected scholarly disciplines and describe any commonalities and differences between disciplines
Methods
Cross-sectional study of conflict of interest policies of top journals, top publishers, international journal associations (eg, International Committee of Medical Journal Editors), multidisciplinary scholarly associations, funding agencies, and universities, from economics, engineering, environmental chemistry and toxicology, law, and medicine. We conducted structured internet searches to identify policies in English on selected scholarly organizations' websites (eg, journal websites) and contacted the organizations to ensure identification of all relevant information. Two authors independently included policies and extracted data. Policies will be analyzed using qualitative content analysis, and we will describe commonalities and differences between policies.
Study protocol: https://osf.io/fycux
Results
We searched websites of journals and included conflict of interest polices from 20 top journals per discipline (ie, 100 journals in total). The content of polices was described in a median of 1 source per journal (range: 1 to 6 sources). Of the 100 included journals, 33 journals only had journal-specific policies, 59 adopted the publishers’ policies, and 8 had both journal-specific and publishers’ policies. Policy information was entirely publicly available for 90 journals, only internal documents for 3, and both publicly available and internal for 7. Results from other scholarly organizations and content analysis will be available for presentation at the Global Evidence Summit 2024.
Conclusion
Conclusions await pending results. We expect that results from our study can be used to revisit and revise conflict of interest policies across scholarly disciplines, thereby minimizing the influence of conflicts of interest on research, to the benefit of society and patients.
Conflicts of interest in medical research continuously represent a risk of an unduly influenced research agenda and how studies are conducted and reported. However, conflicts of interest are not unique to medicine, and a broader understanding of how conflicts of interest are addressed by other scholarly disciplines may allow us to learn from diversity and achieve better fit-for-purpose policies.
Objectives
To investigate and analyze how conflicts of interest in research are addressed across selected scholarly disciplines and describe any commonalities and differences between disciplines
Methods
Cross-sectional study of conflict of interest policies of top journals, top publishers, international journal associations (eg, International Committee of Medical Journal Editors), multidisciplinary scholarly associations, funding agencies, and universities, from economics, engineering, environmental chemistry and toxicology, law, and medicine. We conducted structured internet searches to identify policies in English on selected scholarly organizations' websites (eg, journal websites) and contacted the organizations to ensure identification of all relevant information. Two authors independently included policies and extracted data. Policies will be analyzed using qualitative content analysis, and we will describe commonalities and differences between policies.
Study protocol: https://osf.io/fycux
Results
We searched websites of journals and included conflict of interest polices from 20 top journals per discipline (ie, 100 journals in total). The content of polices was described in a median of 1 source per journal (range: 1 to 6 sources). Of the 100 included journals, 33 journals only had journal-specific policies, 59 adopted the publishers’ policies, and 8 had both journal-specific and publishers’ policies. Policy information was entirely publicly available for 90 journals, only internal documents for 3, and both publicly available and internal for 7. Results from other scholarly organizations and content analysis will be available for presentation at the Global Evidence Summit 2024.
Conclusion
Conclusions await pending results. We expect that results from our study can be used to revisit and revise conflict of interest policies across scholarly disciplines, thereby minimizing the influence of conflicts of interest on research, to the benefit of society and patients.