Other: Funding

The items from STROBE state that you should report:
- Give the source of funding and the role of the funders for the present study and, if applicable, for the original study on which the present article is based

Explanation

Some journals require authors to disclose the presence or absence of financial and other conflicts of interest.(International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, 1997; Krimsky & Rothenberg, 2001) Several investigations show strong associations between the source of funding and the conclusions of research articles. (Bekelman et al., 2003; Davidson, 1986; stelfox1998; Lexchin et al., 2003) The conclusions in randomized trials recommended the experimental drug as the drug of choice much more often (odds ratio 5.3) if the trial was funded by for-profit organisations, even after adjustment for the effect size.(Als-Nielsen et al., 2003) Other studies document the influence of the tobacco and telecommunication industries on the research they funded.(Barnes & Bero, 1998; barnes1996; Huss et al., 2007; Safer, 2002) There are also examples of undue influence when the sponsor is governmental or a nonprofit organization.

Authors or funders may have conflicts of interest that influence any of the following: the design of the study (Safer, 2002); choice of exposures,(Aspinall & Goodman, 1995; Safer, 2002) outcomes,(Chan et al., 2004) statistical methods, (Melander et al., 2003) and selective publication of outcomes (Chan et al., 2004) and studies. (Scherer et al., 2007) Consequently, the role of the funders should be described in detail: in what part of the study they took direct responsibility (eg, design, data collection, analysis, drafting of the manuscript, decision to publish).(International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, 1997) Other sources of undue influence include employers (eg, university administrators for academic researchers and government supervisors, especially political appointees, for government researchers), advisory committees, litigants, and special interest groups.

Resources

Do you know of any good guidance or resources related to this item? Suggest them via comments below, Twitter, GitHub, or e-mail.

References

Als-Nielsen, B., Chen, W., Gluud, C., & Kjaergard, L. L. (2003). Association of Funding and Conclusions in Randomized Drug Trials: A Reflection of Treatment Effect or Adverse Events? JAMA, 290(7), 921–928. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.290.7.921

Aspinall, R. L., & Goodman, N. W. (1995). Denial of effective treatment and poor quality of clinical information in placebo controlled trials of ondansetron for postoperative nausea and vomiting: A review of published trials. BMJ, 311(7009), 844–846. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.311.7009.844

Barnes, D. E., & Bero, L. A. (1998). Why Review Articles on the Health Effects of Passive Smoking Reach Different Conclusions. JAMA, 279(19), 1566–1570. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.279.19.1566

Bekelman, J. E., Li, Y., & Gross, C. P. (2003). Scope and Impact of Financial Conflicts of Interest in Biomedical Research: A Systematic Review. JAMA, 289(4), 454–465. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.289.4.454

Chan, A.-W., Hróbjartsson, A., Haahr, M. T., Gøtzsche, P. C., & Altman, D. G. (2004). Empirical Evidence for Selective Reporting of Outcomes in Randomized Trials: Comparison of Protocols to Published Articles. JAMA, 291(20), 2457–2465. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.291.20.2457

Davidson, R. A. (1986). Source of funding and outcome of clinical trials. Journal of General Internal Medicine, 1(3), 155–158. https://doi.org/10.1007/bf02602327

Huss, A., Egger, M., Hug, K., Huwiler-Muntener, K., & Röösli, M. (2007). Source of funding and results of studies of health effects of mobile phone use: Systematic review of experimental studies. Environmental Health Perspectives, 115(1), 1–4. https://doi.org/10.1289/ehp.9149

International Committee of Medical Journal Editors. (1997). Uniform requirements for manuscripts submitted to biomedical journals. In N Engl J Med (Vol. 336, pp. 309–315). http://www.icmje.org/recommendations/

Krimsky, S., & Rothenberg, L. S. (2001). Conflict of interest policies in science and medical journals: Editorial practices and author disclosures. Science and Engineering Ethics, 7(2), 205–218. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-001-0041-7

Lexchin, J., Bero, L. A., Djulbegovic, B., & Clark, O. (2003). Pharmaceutical industry sponsorship and research outcome and quality: Systematic review. BMJ, 326(7400), 1167–1170. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.326.7400.1167

Melander, H., Ahlqvist-Rastad, J., Meijer, G., & Beermann, B. (2003). Evidence b(i)ased medicine—selective reporting from studies sponsored by pharmaceutical industry: Review of studies in new drug applications. BMJ, 326(7400), 1171–1173. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.326.7400.1171

Safer, D. J. (2002). DESIGN AND REPORTING MODIFICATIONS IN INDUSTRY-SPONSORED COMPARATIVE PSYCHOPHARMACOLOGY TRIALS. The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 190(9), 583. https://journals.lww.com/jonmd/Abstract/2002/09000/DESIGN_AND_REPORTING_MODIFICATIONS_IN.2.aspx

Scherer, R. W., Langenberg, P., & Elm, E. von. (2007). Full publication of results initially presented in abstracts. The Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, 2, MR000005. https://doi.org/10.1002/14651858.MR000005.pub3