Understanding the process and impact of within-study selective reporting bias

如果是否发表以及报告几个结果中的哪一个的决定受到研究结果的影响，发表的研究将形成所有研究的有偏见的子集。在医学研究领域，经验证据表明，具有统计学意义的研究更有可能被提交和接受发表。这种偏见可能会导致有关有效医疗保健的错误决定。我们打算调查这种选择性报告对患者护理决策的威胁有多大。我们将通过采访医学研究人员来了解这种偏见是如何产生的。这项工作的可能好处将是改进评估研究结果对这一偏见来源的稳健程度的方法，并提高对可能导致偏见减少的问题的认识。

Published research will form a biased subset of all research undertaken if the decision on whether to publish, and which of several outcomes to report, is influenced by the results of the research. In the medical research field, empirical evidence suggests that studies achieving statistical significance are more likely to be submitted and accepted for publication. This bias may lead to incorrect decisions concerning effective healthcare. We intend to investigate how much of a threat such selective reporting is to decisions about patient care. We will gain an understanding of how this bias arises through interviews with medical researchers. The likely benefits of this work will be improvements in the methods for assessing how robust research results are to this source of bias and an increased awareness of the problem which may lead to its reduction.