positive-outcome bias - publication bias - The Skeptic's Dictionary

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<li><a href="http://skepdic.com/contents.html#H">h</a></li> <li><a href="http://skepdic.com/contents.html#I">i</a></li> <li><a href="http://skepdic.com/contents.html#J">j</a></li> <li><a href="http://skepdic.com/contents.html#K">k</a></li> <li><a href="http://skepdic.com/contents.html#L">l</a></li> <li><a href="http://skepdic.com/contents.html#M">m</a></li> <li><a href="http://skepdic.com/contents.html#N">n</a></li> <li><a href="http://skepdic.com/contents.html#O">o</a></li> <li><a href="http://skepdic.com/contents.html#P">p</a></li> <li><a href="http://skepdic.com/contents.html#Q">q</a></li> <li><a href="http://skepdic.com/contents.html#R">r</a></li> <li><a href="http://skepdic.com/contents.html#S">s</a></li> <li><a href="http://skepdic.com/contents.html#T">t</a></li> <li><a href="http://skepdic.com/contents.html#U">u</a></li> <li><a href="http://skepdic.com/contents.html#V">v</a></li> <li><a href="http://skepdic.com/contents.html#W">w</a></li> <li><a href="http://skepdic.com/contents.html#X">x</a></li> <li><a href="http://skepdic.com/contents.html#Y">y</a></li> <li><a href="http://skepdic.com/contents.html#Z">z</a></li> </ul> <webContent><h1>positive-outcome (publication) bias</h1> <p style="text-align: left"><font face="Arial" size="3">Positive-outcome (or "publication") bias is the tendency to publish research with a positive outcome more frequently than research with a negative outcome. Negative outcome refers to finding nothing of statistical significance or causal consequence, not to finding that something affects us negatively. </font> </p> <p style="text-align: left"><font face="Arial" size="3">Positive-outcome bias also refers to the tendency of the media to publish medical study stories with positive outcomes much more frequently than such stories with negative outcomes. Media bias may be due to scientific journal bias, but the latter seems to be due mainly to researchers not submitting negative outcome studies for publication (the <a href="filedrawer.html">file-drawer effect</a>), rather than to bias on the part of publication or peer review editors.</font></p> <p style="text-align: left"><font face="Arial" size="3"><b>further reading</b></font></p> <p style="text-align: left"> <font face="Arial" size="3"> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20080113123533/http:/www.scientificexploration.org/jse/abstracts/v14n1a6.php">Publication Bias: The “File-Drawer” Problem in Scientific Inference</a> by Jeffrey D. Scargle. <i>Journal of Scientific Exploration</i>, Vol. 14, No. 1, pp. 91–106, 2000.</font></p> <p style="text-align: left"><font face="Arial" size="3"><a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=8192291&dopt=Abstract">Publication bias: the problem that won't go away</a> by K. Dickersin and Min YI</font></p> <p style="text-align: left"><font face="Arial" size="3"><a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=2406472&dopt=Abstract">The existence of publication bias and risk factors for its occurrence</a> by K. Dickersin</font></p> <p style="text-align: left"><font face="Arial" size="3"><a href="http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/315/7109/640?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&author2=+&searchid=QID_NOT_SET&stored_search=&FIRSTINDEX=0&volume=315&firstpage=640">Publication bias: evidence of delayed publication in a cohort study of clinical research projects</a>  by Jerome M Stern and R John Simes</font></p> <p style="text-align: left"><font face="Arial" size="3"><a href="http://www.ama-assn.org/public/peer/7_15_98/jpv71042.htm">Positive-Outcome Bias and Other Limitations in the Outcome of Research Abstracts Submitted to a Scientific Meeting</a> by Michael L. Callaham, MD; Robert L. Wears, MD; Ellen J. Weber, MD; Christopher Barton, MD; Gary Young, MD</font></p> <p style="text-align: left"><font face="Arial" size="3"><a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=1890712&dopt=Abstract">Bias against negative studies in newspaper reports of medical research</a> by G. Koren and N. Klein </font> </p> <p style="text-align: left"><font face="Arial" size="3">Easterbrook PJ, Berlin JA, Gopalan R, Matthews DR. "Publication bias in clinical research," <i>Lancet</i>. 1991;337:867-872.</font></p> <p style="text-align: left"><font face="Arial" size="3">Moscati R, Jehle D, Ellis D, Fiorello A, Landi M. "Positive-outcome bias: comparison of emergency medicine and general medicine literatures," <i>Acad Emerg Med</i>. 1994;1:267-271.</font></p> <p style="text-align: left"><font face="Arial" size="3"><b>blog </b> </font></p> <p style="text-align: left"><font face="Arial" size="3"><a href="http://seedmagazine.com/content/article/sexy_but_biased/">When scientists, scholarly reviewers, and the media focus only on the most sensational results of research studies, the resulting distortions can harm scientific progress and the public </a></font><font size="3">What about all the studies that don’t succeed? Are peer-reviewers less likely to approve publication of a finding saying that a treatment doesn’t work? Might researchers be tempted to sweep uninteresting results under the rug? Unfortunately, in many fields, the answer to these questions appears to be “yes.”</font></p> <p style="text-align: left"><strong><a name="news" id="news"></a>news</strong></p> <p style="text-align: left"><span class="highlight">new</span> <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jan/05/scandal-drugs-trials-withheld-doctors-tamiflu">It's a scandal drug trial results are still being withheld</a> by Dr. Ben Goldacre "...the chances of a completed trial being published are roughly 50%....trials with positive results are twice as likely to be published as those with negative results...." [/<span class="highlight">new</span>]</p> <p style="text-align: left"><a href="http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/272-39/13627-the-drugs-dont-work-a-modern-medical-scandal">The drugs don't work: a modern medical scandal </a>by Dr. Ben Goldacre "Seven trials had been conducted comparing reboxetine against a placebo. Only one, conducted in 254 patients, had a neat, positive result, and that one was published in an academic journal, for doctors and researchers to read. But six more trials were conducted, in almost 10 times as many patients. All of them showed that reboxetine was no better than a dummy sugar pill. None of these trials was published."--Ben Goldacre [The Guardian article is an excerpt from <em>Bad Pharma: How Drug Companies Mislead Doctors and Harm Patients</em> <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bad-Pharma-companies-mislead-patients/dp/0007350740/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1348351963&sr=8-1">published in the UK September 25, 2012</a>; to be <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Bad-Pharma-Companies-Mislead-Patients/dp/0865478007">published in the U.S. January 8, 2013</a>.]</p> <p></webContent>Last updated 13-Jan-2014 </p> </div> </div> <div class="right"> <div class="right_it"> <div class="search"> <form method="get" action="http://www.google.com/custom" target="_top"> <input type="hidden" name="domains" value="skepdic.com" /> <input type="text" name="q" maxlength="255" value="" size="20" /> <input type="submit" name="sa" value="Search" /> <br /> <div class="search_2"> <input type="radio" name="sitesearch" value="" /> Web     <input type="radio" name="sitesearch" value="skepdic.com" checked="checked" /> Skepdic.com <br /> <img src="_images/logo_google.gif" alt="Google" width="48" height="19" /> </div> <input type="hidden" name="client" value="pub-3542920166946725" /> <input type="hidden" name="forid" value="1" /> <input type="hidden" name="ie" value="ISO-8859-1" /> <input type="hidden" name="oe" value="ISO-8859-1" /> <input type="hidden" name="cof" value="GALT:#008000;GL:1;DIV:#336699;VLC:663399;AH:center;BGC:FFFFFF;LBGC:336699;ALC:0000FF;LC:0000FF;T:000000;GFNT:0000FF;GIMP:0000FF;FORID:1;" /> <input type="hidden" name="hl" value="en" /> </form> </div> <p align="right"><a href="http://skepdic.com/authorpage.html"><strong>Books by R. 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positive-outcome bias - publication bias - The Skeptic's Dictionary - Skepdic.com