Knowledge of ghostwriting and financial conflicts-of-interest reduces the perceived credibility of biomedical research

Die Offenlegung von Interessenkonflikten ist nicht nur theoretisch wichtig, sondern hat praktische Komsequenzen für die Verschreibungspraxis, denn sie trägt zur Skepsis bei. Das zeigt dieser kleine Versuch von Lacasse und Leo. Eine Schlussfolgerung der Autoren: "For industry [...] our results suggest that decreased disclosures are preferable" ist dann wohl auch eher als Warnung zu verstehen.

While the impact of conflicts-of-interest (COI) is of increasing concern in academic medicine, there is little research on the reaction of practicing clinicians to the disclosure of such conflicts. We developed two research vignettes presenting a fictional antidepressant medication study, one in which the principal investigator had no COI and another in which there were multiple COI disclosed. We confirmed the face validity of the COI vignette through consultation with experts. Hospital-based clinicians were randomly assigned to read one of these two vignettes and then administered a credibility scale.

Jeffrey R Lacasse, Jonathan Leo
Knowledge of ghostwriting and financial conflicts-of-interest reduces the perceived credibility of biomedical research
BMC Research Notes 2011, 4:27
www.biomedcentral.com/1756-0500/4/27