Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Amsterdam, Amsterdam Movement Sciences (AMS), Amsterdam University Medical Centre, The Netherlands.
Department of Orthopaedic & Trauma Surgery, Flinders University, Adelaide, Australia, Flinders Medical Centre.
Acta Orthop. 2021 Apr;92(2):240-243. doi: 10.1080/17453674.2020.1853341. Epub 2020 Dec 2.
Background and purpose - There is ongoing debate as to whether commercial funding influences reporting of medical studies. We asked: Is there a difference in reported tones between abstracts, introductions, and discussions of orthopedic journal studies that were commercially funded and those that were not commercially funded?Methods - We conducted a systematic PubMed search to identify commercially funded studies published in 20 orthopedic journals between January 1, 2000 and December 1, 2019. We identified commercial funding of studies by including in our search the names of 10 medical device companies with the largest revenue in 2019. Commercial funding was designated when either the study or 1 or more of the authors received funding from a medical device company directly related to the content of the study. We matched 138 commercially funded articles 1 to 1 with 138 non-commercially funded articles with the same study design, published in the same journal, within a time range of 5 years. The IBM Watson Tone Analyzer was used to determine emotional tones (anger, fear, joy, and sadness) and language style (analytical, confident, and tentative).Results - For abstract and introduction sections, we found no differences in reported tones between commercially funded and non-commercially funded studies. Fear tones (non-commercially funded studies 5.1%, commercially funded studies 0.7%, p = 0.04), and analytical tones (non-commercially funded studies 95%, commercially funded studies 88%, p = 0.03) were more common in discussions of studies that were not commercially funded.Interpretation - Commercially funded studies have comparable tones to non-commercially funded studies in the abstract and introduction. In contrast, the discussion of non-commercially funded studies demonstrated more fear and analytical tones, suggesting them to be more tentative, accepting of uncertainty, and dispassionate. As text analysis tools become more sophisticated and mainstream, it might help to discern commercial bias in scientific reports.
背景与目的-关于商业资金是否会影响医学研究报告的问题一直存在争议。我们提出以下问题：在接受商业资金和未接受商业资金的骨科期刊研究的摘要、引言和讨论中，报告的语气是否存在差异？
方法-我们进行了一项系统的 PubMed 搜索，以确定 2000 年 1 月 1 日至 2019 年 12 月 1 日期间在 20 种骨科期刊上发表的接受商业资金的研究。我们通过在搜索中包含 2019 年收入最大的 10 家医疗器械公司的名称来确定研究的商业资金。当研究或 1 个或多个作者直接从与研究内容相关的医疗器械公司获得资金时，即指定为商业资金。我们将 138 篇接受商业资金的文章与在同一家期刊上、在 5 年内发表的、具有相同研究设计的 138 篇非商业资金文章进行了 1 对 1 的匹配。我们使用 IBM Watson Tone Analyzer 来确定情绪（愤怒、恐惧、喜悦和悲伤）和语言风格（分析、自信和谨慎）。
结果-对于摘要和引言部分，我们发现接受商业资金和非商业资金的研究在报告语气方面没有差异。恐惧语气（非商业资金研究 5.1%，商业资金研究 0.7%，p = 0.04）和分析语气（非商业资金研究 95%，商业资金研究 88%，p = 0.03）在非商业资金研究的讨论中更为常见。
解释-在摘要和引言中，接受商业资金的研究与非商业资金研究的语气相当。相比之下，非商业资金研究的讨论表现出更多的恐惧和分析语气，这表明它们更加谨慎、接受不确定性和冷静。随着文本分析工具变得越来越复杂和主流，它可能有助于辨别科学报告中的商业偏见。
