The latest issue of the Advanced Emergency Nursing Journal[1] includes an editorial on the importance of clinical trial transparency.
Evidence-based practice has become an expectation in health care. In recent years, the retraction of studies based on scientific fraud and outright fabrication of data has been highly publicized in both popular and scientific literature. Although the repudiation of research due to scientific misconduct represents an obvious and egregious breach of professional integrity, these examples may represent only a small portion of the difficulties surrounding the incorporation of valid evidence into practice. Clinicians and students in all disciplines of health care are taught the importance of integrating the best evidence into clinical care; however, many health care providers don’t realize that the data found in published reports of clinical trials may account for only a fraction of the research actually conducted (Song et al., 2010). Studies with negative or nonsignificant results are twice as likely to remain unreported as those with positive results (AllTrials, n.d.-b). The difference in findings between nonreported studies and reported studies of the same phenomena can have important clinical implications. Bias in the dissemination of outcomes represents a significant issue for health care providers and patients and may result in the adoption of treatments for which evidence actually supports a lack of effect. As a result, the risks of treatment may outweigh the benefits, particularly if the patient suffers an adverse effect or forgoes other, truly effective treatments. How can practice be truly “evidence-based” if all the evidence isn’t available?…
AENJ and INANE both support the AllTrials campaign.
[1] January/March 2017 – Volume 39 – Issue 1