Spin infrequently occurs in abstracts of systematic reviews for the pharmacological treatment of type 2 diabetes mellitus

Ryan Ottwell, Lindy Esmond, William Rea, Micah Hartwell, Mousumi Som, Rachael Harris, Zhuqi Miao, Lan Zhu, Wade Arthur, Travis Brachtenbach, Drew N. Wright, Matt Vassar

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

1 Scopus citations

Abstract

Aims: Currently, there is a growing body of research demonstrating that spin—the misinterpretation and distortion of a study's findings—is common in different fields of medicine. To our knowledge, no study has investigated its presence in systematic reviews focused on diabetic therapies.

Methods: We performed a cross-sectional study by searching MEDLINE and Embase for systematic reviews focused on pharmacologic treatments for type 2 diabetes mellitus. Our search retrieved 26,490 records, from which 199 studies were extracted in a masked, duplicate fashion. Each study was evaluated for the nine most severe types of spin and other study design parameters. Spin was presented as frequencies and odds ratios to identify associations between study characteristics.

Results: Spin was identified in the abstracts of 15 systematic reviews (15/199, 7.5%). Spin type 5 was the most common type identified (7/199, 3.5%). Spin types 1, 2, 4 and 8 were not identified. In the last 5 years (2016–2021), seven systematic reviews contained spin within their abstract. There was no association between the presence of spins and any extracted study characteristic.

Conclusions: Our findings show that spin infrequently occurs in the abstracts of systematic reviews focused on pharmacologic therapies for type 2 diabetes mellitus. However, any amount of spin can lead to the distortion of a reader's interpretation of the study's findings. Thus, we provide recommendations with rationale to prevent spin in future systematic reviews.
Original languageEnglish
Article numbere14653
Number of pages8
JournalDiabetic Medicine
Volume38
Issue number10
DOIs
StatePublished - Oct 2021

Keywords

  • healthcare delivery
  • insulin therapy
  • metformin
  • oral therapies

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Spin infrequently occurs in abstracts of systematic reviews for the pharmacological treatment of type 2 diabetes mellitus'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this