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Psychosocial intervention research did not adequately report conflicts of interest

Recent findings suggest that conflict-of-interest disclosures for research on psychosocial interventions in peer-reviewed journals may not be adequate or complete.

“Over the past decade clinicians and researchers have become progressively sensitized to the potential for research to be biased due to financial conflicts of interest (CoI). Much recent concern relates to situations where pharmaceutical companies sponsor research about the effectiveness of drugs,” Manuel Eisner, MA, PhD, of University of Cambridge, United Kingdom, and colleagues wrote. “CoI associated with psychosocial interventions has received less attention. However, health services in many countries increasingly rely on commercially disseminated psychosocial interventions that claim support by research evidence. They play an increasing role in officially approved selections of evidence-based interventions that address conduct problems, substance use, or mental health issues.”

Manuel Eisner

Researchers analyzed CoI disclosures in 136 articles related to four internationally conducted psychosocial interventions, co-authored by intervention developers and published in health science journals. The included interventions addressed parenting, specifically the Positive Parenting Program, the Nurse-Family Partnership, Incredible Years, and Multi-Systemic Therapy. Disclosures and editor responses were available for 134 articles.

Overall, researchers found 71% of articles had absent, incomplete or partly misleading CoI disclosures.

Journal editors were contacted about 92 articles with no CoI disclosure or a disclosure researchers considered problematic. In 71% of these cases, editors published an erratum or corrigendum.

In 16 of these cases, the journal mishandled a submitted disclosure.

The most common reason for not publishing an erratum was that the journal had no disclosure policy at the time of publication, which occurred in 16 cases.

“[This study] found that disclosure rates are low and that disclosure rates vary between different interventions. As more commercial psychosocial programs appear on the market it is important that systems for effective transparency are implemented to ensure that research consumers and clinical commissioning bodies are aware of potential research biases. The field of biomedical research has optimized such systems throughout the last decade, yet our findings suggest that closer attention must be paid to these issues in psychosocial interventions,” the researchers concluded. – by Amanda Oldt

Disclosure: The researchers report no relevant financial disclosures.