Project Details
Projekt
Management of evidence and conflict of interest in guidelines on early childhood allergy prevention and child nutrition (Conflict of Interest)
Applicant
Professorin Dr. Eva Maria Bitzer
Subject Area
Public Health, Healthcare Research, Social and Occupational Medicine
Term
from 2019 to 2024
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 409800133
Early childhood allergy prevention (ECAP) is part of clinical practice guidelines (CPG) as well as food-based dietary guidelines (FBDG). CPG and FBDG are statements including recommendations intended to optimize health behaviour and patient care, which are informed by systematic reviews of existing evidence and an assessment of the benefits and harms of alternative care options. Considerable concern has been expressed by physicians, consumer groups, and other stakeholders about the quality of the processes supporting the development of CPGs and FBDGs, including a lack of transparency of development groups’ methodologies (particularly with respect to evidence quality) and unmanaged conflict of interests (COI). Active COI management is not employed regularly, and COI disclosures without management might not prevent guideline developers from biased advice. In addition, the prevalence of undisclosed COI is unknown. The study objectives are: 1) Assess the quality of guidelines on ECAP and child nutrition (CN) with emphasis on the management of scientific evidence and management of COI. 2) Quantify the amount of COI in guideline panel members and explore the association between COI and recommendation statements. 3) Explore ties between guideline panel members, ECAP and CN researchers, and research funding as a novel strategy to disclose COI.The projects‘ work program consists of three consecutive tasks.First, we will search comprehensively for national and international CPGs and FBDGs concerning ECAP and CN. With established methods we assess the quality of the guideline development process and the management of evidence and COI. Second, we will conduct an in-depth analysis of the association of COI with recommendation statements. We will analyze COI-disclosures with the recommendation statement as unit for analysis (e. g. how many recommendation statements within a guideline are authored by at least one panelist with COI), and with the panelist as unit of analysis (how often is a single panelist with COI engaged in recommendation statements). Third, we will explore the merits and feasibility of social network-analysis as a tool to elucidate ties between guideline panel members, researchers and research sponsors. We will examine if it can prove as an innovative and appropriate strategy to disclose COI.WP 1 is linked to “WP2-Living Systematic Review” (allows for a comparative analysis of studies included in guidelines and the living systematic review) and “WP3-Health Professionals” which will provide insights concerning the perception of COI by health professionals.
DFG Programme
Research Units
