Investigating the impact of trial retractions on the healthcare evidence ecosystem (VITALITY Study I): retrospective cohort study
Abstract
Abstract Objective To investigate the impact of retracted trials on the production and use of healthcare evidence in the evidence ecosystem. Design Retrospective cohort study based on forward citation searching. Data sources Retraction Watch up to 5 November 2024. Study selection Randomised controlled trials in humans that were retracted for any reason. Methods Forward citation searching via Google Scholar and Scopus was used to identify evidence synthesis research (21 November 2024) that quantitatively incorporated retracted trials. Data were independently extracted by two groups of researchers. The results of meta-analyses were updated after exclusion of the retracted trials. The proportions of meta-analyses that changed direction of the pooled effect and/or the significance of the P value were estimated. A generalised linear mixed model was used to investigate the association between the number of included studies and the impact, measured by odds ratio and 95% confidence interval (CI). The impact of distorted evidence on clinical practice guidelines was also investigated on the basis of citation searching. Results The searches identified 1330 retracted trials and 847 systematic reviews that quantitatively synthesised retracted trials, with a total of 3902 meta-analyses that could be replicated. After the potential clustering effects were accounted for, the exclusion of the retracted trials led to a change in the direction of the pooled effect in 8.4% (95% CI 6.8% to…
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Evidence Hub reads this as a randomized trial, done in people. Its evidence level is 2 of 5 (High · randomized trial). Randomized trials of a reasonable size are the strongest single-study design.
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