Article type
Abstract
"Background: Health technology assessments (HTAs) inform policy decisions regarding healthcare interventions, thus necessitating high scientific standards including disclosures of conflicts of interest (COIs). However, the prevalence and nature of COI statements in HTA reports are unknown.
Objective: This study analyzed COI disclosures in published HTA reports to characterize current practices.
Methods: The International HTA Database (available at https://database.inahta.org/) was searched for all English-language HTA reports of any type (mini HTA, full HTA, rapid review). Data extracted for the analysis also included the information about the organization that published the report as well as the country in which was published. Reports were reviewed to identify the prevalence of COI disclosures as well as their quality according to the recommendations for COI disclosure made by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors.
Results: The analysis included 1218 published HTA reports. Of those, there were 218 rapid reviews (17.9%), 79 mini HTA documents (6.5%) and 921 full HTA reports (75.6%). Analysis was performed in batches, and at the time of writing this abstract the initial analysis of the first batch was completed (400 reports). When analyzing the prevalence of the COIs by the publication type, full HTA reports had COI disclosure in 59.8% of reports, 17.3% did not have COI disclosure part while for the rest of 22.9% of full HTA reports it was not possible to determine based on the initial screening. For rapid review reports, 80.6% of such reports had COI disclosure, 12.9% of them did not have while for the rest of 6.4% of reports it was not possible to determine. Finally, mini HTA reports had the COI in 50.0% of reports but did not have it in 48.2% of reports, while for only 1 report (1.72%) it was not possible to determine the COI.
Conclusions: While most published HTA reports declared COIs, disclosure practices varied widely especially when analyzing the prevalence of COI based on the publication type with rapid review reports having the highest prevalence of COI disclosure. Further analysis will deliver results on the rest of the publications as well as the quality analysis of COI disclosures."
Objective: This study analyzed COI disclosures in published HTA reports to characterize current practices.
Methods: The International HTA Database (available at https://database.inahta.org/) was searched for all English-language HTA reports of any type (mini HTA, full HTA, rapid review). Data extracted for the analysis also included the information about the organization that published the report as well as the country in which was published. Reports were reviewed to identify the prevalence of COI disclosures as well as their quality according to the recommendations for COI disclosure made by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors.
Results: The analysis included 1218 published HTA reports. Of those, there were 218 rapid reviews (17.9%), 79 mini HTA documents (6.5%) and 921 full HTA reports (75.6%). Analysis was performed in batches, and at the time of writing this abstract the initial analysis of the first batch was completed (400 reports). When analyzing the prevalence of the COIs by the publication type, full HTA reports had COI disclosure in 59.8% of reports, 17.3% did not have COI disclosure part while for the rest of 22.9% of full HTA reports it was not possible to determine based on the initial screening. For rapid review reports, 80.6% of such reports had COI disclosure, 12.9% of them did not have while for the rest of 6.4% of reports it was not possible to determine. Finally, mini HTA reports had the COI in 50.0% of reports but did not have it in 48.2% of reports, while for only 1 report (1.72%) it was not possible to determine the COI.
Conclusions: While most published HTA reports declared COIs, disclosure practices varied widely especially when analyzing the prevalence of COI based on the publication type with rapid review reports having the highest prevalence of COI disclosure. Further analysis will deliver results on the rest of the publications as well as the quality analysis of COI disclosures."