A cross-sectional examination of conflict-of-interest disclosures of physician-authors publishing in high-impact US medical journals

A cross-sectional examination of conflict-of-interest disclosures of physician-authors publishing in high-impact US medical journals

ObjectiveTo assess the accuracy of self-reported financial conflict-of-interest (COI) disclosures in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) and the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) within the requisite disclosure period prior to article submission.DesignCross-sectional investig...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:BMJ open Vol. 12; no. 4; p. e057598
Main Authors: Baraldi, James H, Picozzo, Steven A, Arnold, Jacob C, Volarich, Kathryn, Gionfriddo, Michael R, Piper, Brian J
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: England British Medical Journal Publishing Group 11-04-2022
BMJ Publishing Group LTD
BMJ Publishing Group
Series:Original research
Subjects:
Cardiovascular disease
CLINICAL PHARMACOLOGY
Clinical trials
Conflict of Interest
Cross-Sectional Studies
Data collection
Disclosure
Ethics
Humans
Lung cancer
Medicaid
Medical equipment
MEDICAL ETHICS
Medicare
Medicine
Patient Protection & Affordable Care Act 2010-US
Periodicals as Topic
Physicians
Publishing
United States
United States
United States > US
Clinical trials
MEDICAL ETHICS
CLINICAL PHARMACOLOGY
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Summary:ObjectiveTo assess the accuracy of self-reported financial conflict-of-interest (COI) disclosures in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) and the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) within the requisite disclosure period prior to article submission.DesignCross-sectional investigation.Data sourcesOriginal clinical-trial research articles published in NEJM (n=206) or JAMA (n=188) from 1 January 2017 to 31 December 2017; self-reported COI disclosure forms submitted to NEJM or JAMA with the authors’ published articles; Open Payments website (from database inception; latest search: August 2019).Main outcome measuresFinancial data reported to Open Payments from 2014 to 2016 (a time period that included all subjects’ requisite disclosure windows) were compared with self-reported disclosure forms submitted to the journals. Payments selected for analysis were defined by Open Payments as ‘general payments.’ Payment types were categorised as ‘disclosed,’ ‘undisclosed,’ ‘indeterminate’ or ‘unrelated’.ResultsThirty-one articles from NEJM and 31 articles from JAMA met inclusion criteria. The physician-authors (n=118) received a combined total of US$7.48 million. Of the 106 authors (89.8%) who received payments, 86 (81.1%) received undisclosed payments. The top 23 most highly compensated received US$6.32 million, of which US$3.00 million (47.6%) was undisclosed.ConclusionsHigh payment amounts, as well as high proportions of undisclosed financial compensation, regardless of amount received, comprised potential COIs for two influential US medical journals. Further research is needed to explain why such high proportions of general payments were undisclosed and whether journals that rely on self-reported COI disclosure need to reconsider their policies.
Bibliography:Original research
ObjectType-Article-1
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-2
content type line 23
ISSN:2044-6055
2044-6055
DOI:10.1136/bmjopen-2021-057598