Norris E, He Y, Loh R, West R, Michie S. Assessing Markers of Reproducibility and Transparency in Smoking Behaviour Change Intervention Evaluations.
J Smok Cessat 2021;
2021:6694386. [PMID:
34306236 PMCID:
PMC8279208 DOI:
10.1155/2021/6694386]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/27/2020] [Accepted: 11/27/2020] [Indexed: 12/16/2022] Open
Abstract
INTRODUCTION
Activities promoting research reproducibility and transparency are crucial for generating trustworthy evidence. Evaluation of smoking interventions is one area where vested interests may motivate reduced reproducibility and transparency.
AIMS
Assess markers of transparency and reproducibility in smoking behaviour change intervention evaluation reports.
METHODS
One hundred evaluation reports of smoking behaviour change intervention randomised controlled trials published in 2018-2019 were identified. Reproducibility markers of pre-registration; protocol sharing; data, material, and analysis script sharing; replication of a previous study; and open access publication were coded in identified reports. Transparency markers of funding and conflict of interest declarations were also coded. Coding was performed by two researchers, with inter-rater reliability calculated using Krippendorff's alpha.
RESULTS
Seventy-one percent of reports were open access, and 73% were pre-registered. However, there are only 13% provided accessible materials, 7% accessible data, and 1% accessible analysis scripts. No reports were replication studies. Ninety-four percent of reports provided a funding source statement, and eighty-eight percent of reports provided a conflict of interest statement.
CONCLUSIONS
Open data, materials, analysis, and replications are rare in smoking behaviour change interventions, whereas funding source and conflict of interest declarations are common. Future smoking research should be more reproducible to enable knowledge accumulation. This study was pre-registered: https://osf.io/yqj5p.
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