Low prevalence of spin in conclusions of interventional pediatric orthopedic studies

Abstract

Interpretation bias as a factor of research reporting quality has not been thoroughly investigated in the conclusions of pediatric orthopedic publications. Our objective was to investigate the prevalence, subtypes, and severity of research reporting bias or spin of the conclusions in full-texts and abstracts of published studies investigating the effects of treatment/intervention in the pediatric orthopedic literature. We systematically searched ten high-ranking orthopedic journals on MEDLINE/PubMed. Inclusion criteria were pediatric orthopedic studies investigating the effects of treatment/intervention. We used descriptive statistics to report the prevalence, subtype, and severity of reporting bias in the studies’ conclusions according to validated classification criteria. We checked the results to ensure that data were neither misreported nor misinterpreted/extrapolated in the conclusions of the full-texts and their abstracts. Out of 93 included studies in the final analysis, 17 (18%) had at least one count of bias. Nine (10%) studies had bias in both full-text and the corresponding abstract conclusions. In four (4%) studies, bias was restricted to conclusions of abstracts only, and in four (4%) studies was restricted to a bias criterion assigned to the classification criteria of conclusions of full-text only and not the abstract. We analyzed 2511 spin/bias items across 93 studies and reported 30 (1%) counts of bias in conclusions of full-text and/or abstracts. The intervention was surgical in (71%) of studies. Interventional pediatric orthopedic studies published in high-ranking journals showed a low prevalence of reporting bias, namely, misleading reporting, misinterpretation, and inadequate extrapolation of conclusions. A comparative analysis with lower-ranking journals as a control group may reveal if our favorable results are an attribute of journal rank/quality. In general, editorial policies should emphasize skilled interpretation and extrapolation of research results.