Relationship between disclosure of funding and COI with other characteristics of articles (n=221)
| Funding source disclosure | COI disclosure | |||||
| Mentioned (n) | Not mentioned (n) | p Value | Mentioned (n) | Not mentioned (n) | p Value | |
| Ethical considerations | ||||||
| Informed consent | ||||||
| Yes | 68.6% (109) | 31.4% (50) | NS | 20.1% (32) | 79.9% (127) | NS |
| No | 66.1% (21) | 33.9% (21) | 19.4% (12) | 80.6% (50) | ||
| Financial compensation | ||||||
| Yes | 75% (12) | 25% (4) | NS | 12.5% (2) | 87.5% (14) | NS |
| No | 67.3% (138) | 32.7% (67) | 20.5% (42) | 79.5% (163) | ||
| Non-financial benefits | ||||||
| Yes | 100% (5) | 0 | NS | 12.5% (2) | 87.5% (14) | NS |
| No | 65.4%(134) | 34.6% (71) | 20.5% (42) | 79.5% (163) | ||
| COI | ||||||
| Yes | 84.1% (37) | 15.9% (7) | 0.010 | – | – | – |
| No | 63.8% (113) | 36.2% (64) | ||||
| Characteristics of study | ||||||
| Type of intervention | ||||||
| Only psychosocial | 67.4% (58) | 32.6% (28) | NS | 12.8% (11) | 87.2% (75) | 0.034 |
| Biomedical intervention | 68.1% (92) | 31.9% (43) | 24.4% (33) | 75.6% (102) | ||
| Clinical trial | ||||||
| Clinical trial | 85% (17) | 15% (3) | 0.085 | 35% (7) | 65% (13) | 0.76 |
| Not a clinical trial | 33.8% (68) | 66.2% (133) | 18.4% (37) | 81.6% (164) | ||
| Risk | ||||||
| More than minimal risk | 76% (19) | 24% (6) | NS | 32% (8) | 68% (17) | NS |
| Not more than minimal risk | 66.8% (131) | 33.2% (65) | 18.4% (36) | 81.6% (160) | ||
| Characteristics of participants | ||||||
| Vulnerable population | ||||||
| Vulnerable population studied | 68.6% (24) | 31.4% (11) | NS | 17.1 (6) | 82.9% (29) | NS |
| No vulnerable population | 67.7% (126) | 32.3% (60) | 20.4% (38) | 79.6% (148) | ||
| Characteristics of funding | ||||||
| Source of funding | ||||||
| Source mentioned | 68% (150) | 24.7% (37) | 75.3% (113) | 0.010 | ||
| Source not mentioned | 32% (71) | 9.9% (7) | 90.1% (64) | |||
| If mentioned (n=146)*: sponsor | 85.6% (125) | – | – | 24.8% (31) | 75.2% (94) | NS |
| Host | 14.4% (21) | 9.5% (2) | 90.5% (19) | |||
| If sponsor (n=125)†: industry | 8% (10) | 40% (4) | 60% (6) | NS | ||
| All other | 92% (118) | 23.5% (27) | 76.5% (88) | |||
| Characteristics of authorship | ||||||
| % Sponsor authors | <0.001 | NS | ||||
| 0% to <50% | 57.9% (77) | 42.1% (56) | 17.3% (23) | 82.7% (110) | ||
| 50% to 100% | 83% (73) | 17% (15) | 23.9% (21) | 76.1% (67) | ||
| Corresponding author‡ | ||||||
| Host | 49.5% (51) | 50.5% (52) | <0.001 | 18.4% (19) | 81.6% (84) | NS |
| Sponsor | 83.5% (96) | 16.5% (19) | 21.7% (25) | 78.3% (90) | ||
| Name of sponsor country | ||||||
| Sponsor country is USA | 84.6% (88) | 15.4% (16) | <0.001 | 20.2% (21) | 79.8% (83) | NS |
| Any other sponsor country | 80.4% (41) | 19.6% (10) | 23.5% (12) | 76.5% (39) | ||
| No sponsor | 31.8% (21) | 68.2% (45) | 16.7% (11) | 83.3% (55) | ||
| Characteristics of journal | ||||||
| Journal editor's locations | ||||||
| All from sponsor countries | 75.6% (99) | 24.4% (32) | <0.001 | 22.9% (30) | 77.1% (101) | NS |
| All from host countries | 37.9% (11) | 62.1% (18) | 13.8% (4) | 86.2% (25) | ||
| From both | 65.6% (40) | 34.4% (21) | 16.4% (10) | 83.6% (51) | ||
| Journals complying with ICMJE | ||||||
| Affiliated with ICMJE | 80.6% (29) | 19.4% (7) | 075 | 44.4% (16) | 55.6% (20) | 0.001 |
| Not affiliated with ICMJE | 65.4% (121) | 34.6% (64) | 15.1% (28) | 84.9% (157) | ||
↵* Analysis limited to articles that identified source of funding in article.
↵† Analysis limited to articles that were sponsored studies.
↵‡ Analysis omitted three journal articles that did not mention corresponding author's country affiliation.
COI, conflict of interest; ICMJE, International Committee of Medical Journal Editors.