In epidemiology, reporting bias is defined as "selective revealing or suppression of information" by subjects (for example about past medical history, smoking, sexual experiences).
The generally accepted primary means of communication is "full" publication of the study methods and results in an article published in a scientific journal.
The Declaration of Helsinki and other consensus documents have outlined the ethical obligation to make results from clinical research publicly available.
[4] Reporting bias occurs when the dissemination of research findings is influenced by the nature and direction of the results, for instance in systematic reviews.
[citation needed] Various attempts have been made to overcome the effects of the reporting biases, including statistical adjustments to the results of published studies.
[7] None of these approaches has proved satisfactory, however, and there is increasing acceptance that reporting biases must be tackled by establishing registers of controlled trials and by promoting good publication practice.
[6][8] Litigation brought upon by consumers and health insurers against Pfizer for the fraudulent sales practices in marketing of the drug gabapentin in 2004 revealed a comprehensive publication strategy that employed elements of reporting bias.
[13] Over the past two decades, evidence has accumulated that failure to publish research studies, including clinical trials testing intervention effectiveness, is pervasive.
[16] The most direct evidence of publication bias in the medical field comes from follow-up studies of research projects identified at the time of funding or ethics approval.
The publication of research findings in journals with different ease of access or levels of indexing in standard databases, depending on the nature and direction of results.
Notable bias (spin) has been reported in the interpretation of results of randomized control trials, although these study designs rank top in the level-of-evidence hierarchy.
[36][37][38] Contrastingly, a study found low prevalence of bias in the conclusions of non-randomized control trials published in high-ranking orthopedic publications.
[39] Control for bias in research reporting can increase trust in the published medical literature and better inform evidence-based clinical practice.
Selective reporting of suspected or confirmed adverse treatment effects is an area for particular concern because of the potential for patient harm.
[40] Recent attention in the lay and scientific media on failure to accurately report adverse events for drugs (e.g., selective serotonin uptake inhibitors, rosiglitazone, rofecoxib) has resulted in additional publications, too numerous to review, indicating substantial selective outcome reporting (mainly suppression) of known or suspected adverse events.