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Publication rate for funded studies from a major UK health research funder: a cohort study

Publication rate for funded studies from a major UK health research funder: a cohort study
Publication rate for funded studies from a major UK health research funder: a cohort study
Objectives

This study aimed to investigate what percentage of National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Health Technology Assessment (HTA) Programme-funded projects have published their final reports in the programme's journal HTA and to explore reasons for non-publication.

Design Retrospective cohort study.

Setting

Failure to publish findings from research is a significant area of research waste. It has previously been suggested that potentially over 50% of studies funded are never published.

Participants

All NIHR HTA projects with a planned submission date for their final report for publication in the journal series on or before 9 December 2011 were included.

Primary and secondary outcome measures

The projects were classified according to the type of research, whether they had been published or not; if not yet published, whether they would be published in the future or not. The reasons for non-publication were investigated.

Results

628 projects were included: 582 (92.7%) had published a monograph; 19 (3%) were expected to publish a monograph; 13 (2.1%) were discontinued studies and would not publish; 12 (1.9%) submitted a report which did not lead to a publication as a monograph; and two (0.3%) did not submit a report. Overall, 95.7% of HTA studies either have published or will publish a monograph: 94% for those commissioned in 2002 or before and 98% for those commissioned after 2002. Of the 27 projects for which there will be no report, the majority (21) were commissioned in 2002 or before. Reasons why projects failed to complete included failure to recruit; issues concerning the organisation where the research was taking place; drug licensing issues; staffing issues; and access to data.

Conclusions

The percentage of HTA projects for which a monograph is published is high. The advantages of funding organisations requiring publication in their own journal include avoidance of publication bias and research waste.
1-7
Turner, Sheila
42f19397-8e9f-435d-a348-2cc1639b5eb4
Wright, David
a55be721-4b15-4555-bf61-73fcb75c1a39
Maeso, Reb
185df84e-11ba-4398-acdd-2670dbcdb502
Cook, Andrew
ab9c7bb3-974a-4db9-b3c2-9942988005d5
Milne, Ruairidh
bd90470b-bba2-49a1-aa12-f1319d78afc2
Turner, Sheila
42f19397-8e9f-435d-a348-2cc1639b5eb4
Wright, David
a55be721-4b15-4555-bf61-73fcb75c1a39
Maeso, Reb
185df84e-11ba-4398-acdd-2670dbcdb502
Cook, Andrew
ab9c7bb3-974a-4db9-b3c2-9942988005d5
Milne, Ruairidh
bd90470b-bba2-49a1-aa12-f1319d78afc2

Turner, Sheila, Wright, David, Maeso, Reb, Cook, Andrew and Milne, Ruairidh (2013) Publication rate for funded studies from a major UK health research funder: a cohort study. BMJ Open, 3 (5), 1-7. (doi:10.1136/bmjopen-2012-002521).

Record type: Article

Abstract

Objectives

This study aimed to investigate what percentage of National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Health Technology Assessment (HTA) Programme-funded projects have published their final reports in the programme's journal HTA and to explore reasons for non-publication.

Design Retrospective cohort study.

Setting

Failure to publish findings from research is a significant area of research waste. It has previously been suggested that potentially over 50% of studies funded are never published.

Participants

All NIHR HTA projects with a planned submission date for their final report for publication in the journal series on or before 9 December 2011 were included.

Primary and secondary outcome measures

The projects were classified according to the type of research, whether they had been published or not; if not yet published, whether they would be published in the future or not. The reasons for non-publication were investigated.

Results

628 projects were included: 582 (92.7%) had published a monograph; 19 (3%) were expected to publish a monograph; 13 (2.1%) were discontinued studies and would not publish; 12 (1.9%) submitted a report which did not lead to a publication as a monograph; and two (0.3%) did not submit a report. Overall, 95.7% of HTA studies either have published or will publish a monograph: 94% for those commissioned in 2002 or before and 98% for those commissioned after 2002. Of the 27 projects for which there will be no report, the majority (21) were commissioned in 2002 or before. Reasons why projects failed to complete included failure to recruit; issues concerning the organisation where the research was taking place; drug licensing issues; staffing issues; and access to data.

Conclusions

The percentage of HTA projects for which a monograph is published is high. The advantages of funding organisations requiring publication in their own journal include avoidance of publication bias and research waste.

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More information

e-pub ahead of print date: 9 April 2013
Published date: 2 May 2013
Organisations: Faculty of Medicine

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 368198
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/368198
PURE UUID: 084bf55c-5b20-426d-8624-9294fbb46445
ORCID for Andrew Cook: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-6680-439X
ORCID for Ruairidh Milne: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-5117-4380

Catalogue record

Date deposited: 20 Aug 2014 13:36
Last modified: 15 Mar 2024 03:25

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Contributors

Author: Sheila Turner
Author: David Wright
Author: Reb Maeso
Author: Andrew Cook ORCID iD
Author: Ruairidh Milne ORCID iD

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