Cochrane Review protocol: Exercise therapy for chronic fatigue syndrome (individual patient data)

A.B.

A.B.

Senior Member
Messages
3,780
biophile said:
IIRC, none of the GET studies so far have used objective outcomes to confirm the assumed increases in activity. [...]
Click to expand...

Terrific post. Is there any way us patients can share our concerns with persons at Cochrane that may take them seriously?
 
biophile

biophile

Places I'd rather be.
Messages
8,977
A.B. said:
Terrific post. Is there any way us patients can share our concerns with persons at Cochrane that may take them seriously?
Click to expand...

Thanks. I think Bob mentioned earlier on this thread he might prepare some document?
 
biophile

biophile

Places I'd rather be.
Messages
8,977
Dolphin posted this on another thread:

J Clin Epidemiol. 2012 Jul;65(7):740-7. doi: 10.1016/j.jclinepi.2012.01.008. Epub 2012 Apr 25.

Primary study authors of significant studies are more likely to believe that a strong association exists in a heterogeneous meta-analysis compared with methodologists.

Panagiotou OA1, Ioannidis JP.

OBJECTIVE: To assess the interpretation of a highly heterogeneous meta-analysis by authors of primary studies and by methodologists.

STUDY DESIGN AND SETTING: We surveyed the authors of studies on the association between insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1) and prostate cancer, and 20 meta-analysis methodologists. Authors and methodologists presented with the respective meta-analysis results were queried about the effect size and potential causality of the association. We evaluated whether author responses correlated with the number of IGF-related articles they had published and their study results included in the meta-analysis. We also compared authors' and methodologists' responses.

RESULTS: Authors who had published more IGF-related papers offered more generous effect size estimates for the association (ρ(s)=0.61, P=0.01) and higher likelihood that the odds ratio (OR) was greater than 1.20 (ρ(s)=0.63, P=0.01). Authors who had published themselves studies with statistically significant effects for a positive association were more likely to believe that the true OR is greater than 1.20 compared with methodologists (median likelihood 50% versus 2.5%, P=0.01).

CONCLUSION: Researchers are influenced by their own investment in the field, when interpreting a meta-analysis that includes their own study. Authors who published significant results are more likely to believe that a strong association exists compared with methodologists.

Copyright © 2012. Published by Elsevier Inc.

PMID: 22537426 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE
Click to expand...

"Researchers are influenced by their own investment in the field, when interpreting a meta-analysis that includes their own study. Authors who published significant results are more likely to believe that a strong association exists compared with methodologists."

So imagine what happens when a dozen pro-GET authors of GET studies get together to conduct a meta-analysis on GET which consists mostly of their own controversial studies?

Keith Laws tweeted this recently: "Given bias in meta analyses for those who have studies included in analysis - worth considering CBT for psychosis meta analyses authors"

https://twitter.com/Keith_Laws/status/456847804485214209
 
Last edited:
D

Dolphin

Senior Member
Messages
17,567
biophile said:
Dolphin posted this on another thread:



"Researchers are influenced by their own investment in the field, when interpreting a meta-analysis that includes their own study. Authors who published significant results are more likely to believe that a strong association exists compared with methodologists."

So imagine what happens when a dozen pro-GET authors of GET studies get together to conduct a meta-analysis?

Keith Laws tweeted this recently: "Given bias in meta analyses for those who have studies included in analysis - worth considering CBT for psychosis meta analyses authors"

https://twitter.com/Keith_Laws/status/456847804485214209
Click to expand...
Another paper

Researcher allegiance in psychotherapy outcome research: an overview of reviews.
Clin Psychol Rev. 2013 Jun;33(4):501-11. doi: 10.1016/j.cpr.2013.02.002. Epub 2013 Feb 21.
Munder T1, Brütsch O, Leonhart R, Gerger H, Barth J.
Author information

Abstract
Researcher allegiance (RA) is widely discussed as a risk of bias in psychotherapy outcome research. The relevance attached to RA bias is related to meta-analyses demonstrating an association of RA with treatment effects. However, recent meta-analyses have yielded mixed results. To provide more clarity on the magnitude and robustness of the RA-outcome association this article reports on a meta-meta-analysis summarizing all available meta-analytic estimates of the RA-outcome association. Random-effects methods were used. Primary study overlap was controlled. Thirty meta-analyses were included. The mean RA-outcome association was r=.262 (p=.002, I(2)=28.98%), corresponding to a moderate effect size. The RA-outcome association was robust across several moderating variables including characteristics of treatment, population, and the type of RA assessment. Allegiance towards the RA bias hypothesis moderated the RA-outcome association. The findings of this meta-meta-analysis suggest that the RA-outcome association is substantial and robust. Implications for psychotherapy outcome research are discussed.

PMID:

23500154
Click to expand...

[PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
 
biophile

biophile

Places I'd rather be.
Messages
8,977
Esther posted this (point made by a Cochrane blog) on another thread:

This illustrates what we feel should become a cardinal rule: the need to separate the clinical evaluation of innovations from their innovators, who irrespective of any of their endeavours to be ‘neutral’ have a substantial investment, whether emotional, perhaps financial, or in terms of professional or international status, in the successful implementation of their idea. It is noteworthy, but perhaps incidental, that the finding of the Japanese trial in favour of external immobilisation is in contrast to a lack of differences between external and internal immobilisation found by the other two randomised trials, both of which were at high risk of bias only from lack of blinding.
Click to expand...

http://www.thecochranelibrary.com/d...eness-the-haphazard-route-to-finding-out.html
 
biophile

biophile

Places I'd rather be.
Messages
8,977
Psychotherapy As Religion: The Civil Divine In America
By William M. Epstein
http://www.amazon.com/Psychotherapy-As-Religion-Divine-America/dp/0874176786

I haven't read this book but this page may be relevant to the planned Cochrane review on GET for CFS:

p15-book.png


http://books.google.com.au/books?id=76u5JeJAHZQC&pg=PA15&lpg=PA15
 
biophile

biophile

Places I'd rather be.
Messages
8,977
Adding a few more to the collection ...

Are meta-analyses done by promoters of psychological treatments as tainted as those done by Pharma?

By James Coyne PhD

Posted: May 20, 2014

http://blogs.plos.org/mindthebrain/...treatments-tainted-meta-analyses-done-pharma/
Click to expand...

And ...

"Meta-analyses of confounded studies will obey the immortal law of 'garbage in, garbage out'."

http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/04/28/the-control-group-is-out-of-control/
Click to expand...

The ending of the last article is pretty funny:

Science! YOU WERE THE CHOSEN ONE! It was said that you would destroy reliance on biased experts, not join them! Bring balance to epistemology, not leave it in darkness!

se_obiwan.png


I LOVED YOU!!!!
Click to expand...
 
D

Dolphin

Senior Member
Messages
17,567
This has been pointed out to me today:


PROSPERO International prospective register of systematic reviews

Exercise therapy for chronic fatigue syndrome (individual patient data) [Cochrane Protocol]
Lillebeth Larun, Jan Odgaard-Jensen, Kjetil Brurberg, Trudie Chalder, Marianne Dybwad, Rona Moss-Morris, Michael Sharpe, Karen Wallman, Alison Wearden, Peter White, Paul Glasziou

[..]

Date of registration in PROSPERO
31 March 2015

Date of publication of this revision
31 March 2015
Click to expand...
I don't know whether much if anything has changed.
 
BurnA

BurnA

Senior Member
Messages
2,087
Bob said:
Yes, that is/was the plan. But it's on hold at the moment because of other stuff to attend to. If anyone wants to help out with the document that we're attempting to create then please PM me.
Click to expand...
Did anything ever happen with this ?
 
B

Bob

Senior Member
Messages
16,455
Location
England (south coast)
BurnA said:
Did anything ever happen with this ?
Click to expand...
Two of us were attempting to create a document compiling a list of conflicts of interests but we lost momentum partly because it was such a boring task, partly because of health, and partly because there are always so many other things on our to-do lists. I keep coming back to this issue and always regret not having finished the task. It's great that James Coyne raised this very issue in his latest blog yesterday.
 
BurnA

BurnA

Senior Member
Messages
2,087
Bob said:
Two of us were attempting to create a document compiling a list of conflicts of interests but we lost momentum partly because it was such a boring task, partly because of health, and partly because there are always so many other things on our to-do lists. I keep coming back to this issue and always regret not having finished the task. It's great that James Coyne raised this very issue in his latest blog yesterday.
Click to expand...

Thanks. Yes I can imagine how boring it is.
However it would be very useful, not only for conflicts of interest but also to highlight the relationships between different people and show what a tightly knit group of people these folk really are.
If there is anything I can do to help let me know.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back