Dataset Information

Reproducible research practices, openness and transparency in health economic evaluations: study protocol for a cross-sectional comparative analysis.

ABSTRACT: INTRODUCTION:There has been a growing awareness of the need for rigorously and transparent reported health research, to ensure the reproducibility of studies by future researchers. Health economic evaluations, the comparative analysis of alternative interventions in terms of their costs and consequences, have been promoted as an important tool to inform decision-making. The objective of this study will be to investigate the extent to which articles of economic evaluations of healthcare interventions indexed in MEDLINE incorporate research practices that promote transparency, openness and reproducibility. METHODS AND ANALYSIS:This is the study protocol for a cross-sectional comparative analysis. We registered the study protocol within the Open Science Framework (osf.io/gzaxr). We will evaluate a random sample of 600 cost-effectiveness analysis publications, a specific form of health economic evaluations, indexed in MEDLINE during 2012 (n=200), 2019 (n=200) and 2022 (n=200). We will include published papers written in English reporting an incremental cost-effectiveness ratio in terms of costs per life years gained, quality-adjusted life years and/or disability-adjusted life years. Screening and selection of articles will be conducted by at least two researchers. Reproducible research practices, openness and transparency in each article will be extracted using a standardised data extraction form by multiple researchers, with a 33% random sample (n=200) extracted in duplicate. Information on general, methodological and reproducibility items will be reported, stratified by year, citation of the Consolidated Health Economic Evaluation Reporting Standards (CHEERS) statement and journal. Risk ratios with 95% CIs will be calculated to represent changes in reporting between 2012-2019 and 2019-2022. ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION:Due to the nature of the proposed study, no ethical approval will be required. All data will be deposited in a cross-disciplinary public repository. It is anticipated the study findings could be relevant to a variety of audiences. Study findings will be disseminated at scientific conferences and published in peer-reviewed journals.

SUBMITTER: Catala-Lopez F

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7045222 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

Reproducible research practices, openness and transparency in health economic evaluations: study protocol for a cross-sectional comparative analysis.

Catalá-López Ferrán F Caulley Lisa L Ridao Manuel M Hutton Brian B Husereau Don D Drummond Michael F MF Alonso-Arroyo Adolfo A Pardo-Fernández Manuel M Bernal-Delgado Enrique E Meneu Ricard R Tabarés-Seisdedos Rafael R Repullo José Ramón JR Moher David D

BMJ open 20200213 2

<h4>Introduction</h4>There has been a growing awareness of the need for rigorously and transparent reported health research, to ensure the reproducibility of studies by future researchers. Health economic evaluations, the comparative analysis of alternative interventions in terms of their costs and consequences, have been promoted as an important tool to inform decision-making. The objective of this study will be to investigate the extent to which articles of economic evaluations of healthcare i ...[more]

PMID: 32060160

Similar Datasets

Project description:Currently, there is a growing interest in ensuring the transparency and reproducibility of the published scientific literature. According to a previous evaluation of 441 biomedical journals articles published in 2000-2014, the biomedical literature largely lacked transparency in important dimensions. Here, we surveyed a random sample of 149 biomedical articles published between 2015 and 2017 and determined the proportion reporting sources of public and/or private funding and conflicts of interests, sharing protocols and raw data, and undergoing rigorous independent replication and reproducibility checks. We also investigated what can be learned about reproducibility and transparency indicators from open access data provided on PubMed. The majority of the 149 studies disclosed some information regarding funding (103, 69.1% [95% confidence interval, 61.0% to 76.3%]) or conflicts of interest (97, 65.1% [56.8% to 72.6%]). Among the 104 articles with empirical data in which protocols or data sharing would be pertinent, 19 (18.3% [11.6% to 27.3%]) discussed publicly available data; only one (1.0% [0.1% to 6.0%]) included a link to a full study protocol. Among the 97 articles in which replication in studies with different data would be pertinent, there were five replication efforts (5.2% [1.9% to 12.2%]). Although clinical trial identification numbers and funding details were often provided on PubMed, only two of the articles without a full text article in PubMed Central that discussed publicly available data at the full text level also contained information related to data sharing on PubMed; none had a conflicts of interest statement on PubMed. Our evaluation suggests that although there have been improvements over the last few years in certain key indicators of reproducibility and transparency, opportunities exist to improve reproducible research practices across the biomedical literature and to make features related to reproducibility more readily visible in PubMed.

Project description:BackgroundThe Transparency and Openness Promotion (TOP) Guidelines describe modular standards that journals can adopt to promote open science. The TOP Factor is a metric to describe the extent to which journals have adopted the TOP Guidelines in their policies. Systematic methods and rating instruments are needed to calculate the TOP Factor. Moreover, implementation of these open science policies depends on journal procedures and practices, for which TOP provides no standards or rating instruments.MethodsWe describe a process for assessing journal policies, procedures, and practices according to the TOP Guidelines. We developed this process as part of the Transparency of Research Underpinning Social Intervention Tiers (TRUST) Initiative to advance open science in the social intervention research ecosystem. We also provide new instruments for rating journal instructions to authors (policies), manuscript submission systems (procedures), and published articles (practices) according to standards in the TOP Guidelines. In addition, we describe how to determine the TOP Factor score for a journal, calculate reliability of journal ratings, and assess coherence among a journal's policies, procedures, and practices. As a demonstration of this process, we describe a protocol for studying approximately 345 influential journals that have published research used to inform evidence-based policy.DiscussionThe TRUST Process includes systematic methods and rating instruments for assessing and facilitating implementation of the TOP Guidelines by journals across disciplines. Our study of journals publishing influential social intervention research will provide a comprehensive account of whether these journals have policies, procedures, and practices that are consistent with standards for open science and thereby facilitate the publication of trustworthy findings to inform evidence-based policy. Through this demonstration, we expect to identify ways to refine the TOP Guidelines and the TOP Factor. Refinements could include: improving templates for adoption in journal instructions to authors, manuscript submission systems, and published articles; revising explanatory guidance intended to enhance the use, understanding, and dissemination of the TOP Guidelines; and clarifying the distinctions among different levels of implementation. Research materials are available on the Open Science Framework: https://osf.io/txyr3/ .

Dataset Information

Reproducible research practices, openness and transparency in health economic evaluations: study protocol for a cross-sectional comparative analysis.

Publications

Reproducible research practices, openness and transparency in health economic evaluations: study protocol for a cross-sectional comparative analysis.

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

Tweets