Effect of spin in the abstract of a randomised controlled trial on physiotherapists’ perception of treatment benefit: a randomised controlled trial

Heppy Khanpara · V. Prakash

9 citations0/0 files storedBMJ Evidence-Based Medicine

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Meta-analysis and systematic reviews Academic Publishing and Open Access Pharmaceutical industry and healthcare

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: To assess the effect of spin in the abstract of a randomised controlled trial (RCT) on physiotherapists' perception of treatment benefit evaluated in the trial. DESIGN: Parallel-group RCT. SETTING: Physiotherapy departments in hospitals and clinics in India. PARTICIPANTS: Physiotherapists working in clinical settings. INTERVENTIONS: We selected one abstract with high level of spin published in one of the core journals of physiotherapy and created two versions of the abstract, that is, with and without spin. We randomly assigned physiotherapists working in clinical settings (N=128) to read one version of the selected abstract, with or without spin. Participants were blinded to the study design, objectives and randomisation. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Physiotherapists' interpretation of beneficial effect of the experimental treatment (0-10 scale) reported in the abstract. The secondary outcomes were clinicians' perception of methodological rigour and the study importance, their interest in reading the full text, and their interest in running another trial evaluating this treatment. RESULTS: We found a medium reduction in confidence of beneficial effect of the experimental treatment among physiotherapists who read the abstract without spin (mean score 4.3±2.8) compared with those who read the abstract with spin (mean score 6.14±2.6). The mean difference in scores between abstracts with and without spin was 1.8 (95% CI 0.8 to 2.8; p<0.001). For other outcomes measures studied there was no statistically significant effect. CONCLUSIONS: Removal of spin in the abstract of RCT reporting statistically non-significant results have medium effect in improving physiotherapists' accuracy of interpretation of study results. Spin contributes to clinicians' positive perception about the benefit of experimental intervention tested in the trial despite the evidence showing no superiority of experimental intervention. TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER: CTRI/2020/02/023557.

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References

2007G*Power 3: A flexible statistical power analysis program for the social, behavioral, and biomedical sciences 2010Reporting and Interpretation of Randomized Controlled Trials With Statistically Nonsignificant Results for Primary Outcomes 2014Impact of Spin in the Abstracts of Articles Reporting Results of Randomized Controlled Trials in the Field of Cancer: The SPIIN Randomized Controlled Trial 2017‘Spin’ in published biomedical literature: A methodological systematic review 1999Accuracy of Data in Abstracts of Published Research Articles 2003Effect of interpretive bias on research evidence 2008The quality of reporting of trial abstracts is suboptimal: Survey of major general medical journals 2006What are the implications of optimism bias in clinical research?

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