Jack Wilkinson, Calvin Heal, George A Antoniou, Ella Flemyng, Alison Avenell, Virginia Barbour, Esmee M Bordewijk, Nicholas J L Brown, Mike Clarke, Jo Dumville, Steph Grohmann, Lyle C Gurrin, Jill A Hayden, Kylie E Hunter, Emily Lam, Toby Lasserson, Tianjing Li, Sarah Lensen, Jianping Liu, Andreas Lundh, Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz, Ben W Mol, Neil E O'Connell, Lisa Parker, Barbara Redman, Anna Lene Seidler, Kyle Sheldrick, Emma Sydenham, Darren L Dahly, Madelon van Wely, Lisa Bero, Jamie J Kirkham
BACKGROUND: Randomised controlled trials (RCTs) inform healthcare decisions. Unfortunately, some published RCTs contain false data, and some appear to have been entirely fabricated. Systematic reviews are performed to identify and synthesise all RCTs which have been conducted on a given topic. This means that any of these 'problematic studies' are likely to be included, but there are no agreed methods for identifying them. The INSPECT-SR project is developing a tool to identify problematic RCTs in systematic reviews of healthcare-related interventions...
March 25, 2024: medRxiv