PurposeMissing data are a major problem in the analysis of data from randomised trials affecting power and potentially producing biased treatment effects. Specifically focussing on quality of life outcomes, we aimed to report the amount of missing data, whether imputation was used and what methods and was the missing mechanism discussed from four leading medical journals and compare the picture to our previous review nearly a decade ago.MethodsA random selection (50 %) of all RCTS published during 2013–2014 in BMJ, JAMA, Lancet and NEJM was obtained. RCTs reported in research letters, cluster RCTs, non-randomised designs, review articles and meta-analysis were excluded.ResultsWe included 87 RCTs in the review of which 35 % the amount of missing primary QoL data was unclear, 31 (36 %) used imputation. Only 23 % discussed the missing data mechanism. Nearly half used complete case analysis. Reporting was more unclear for secondary QoL outcomes. Compared to the previous review, multiple imputation was used more prominently but mainly in sensitivity analysis.ConclusionsInadequate reporting and handling of missing QoL data in RCTs are still an issue. There is a large gap between statistical methods research relating to missing data and the use of the methods in applications. A sensitivity analysis should be undertaken to explore the sensitivity of the main results to different missing data assumptions. Medical journals can help to improve the situation by requiring higher standards of reporting and analytical methods to deal with missing data, and by issuing guidance to authors on expected standard.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s11136-016-1411-6) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Background/Objective: The present study investigated the effect of Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT) intervention on burnout among English education undergraduates in southeastern Nigeria. Method: The study adopted a randomized controlled trial design. A total of 96 English education undergraduates with high burnout symptoms in the participating universities took part in the study. These were randomly assigned to groups – intervention group (n = 48) and control group (n = 48). The Oldenburg Burnout Inventory for students (OLBI-S) was used for data collection. The collected data were analyzed using 2-way mixed repeated measure ANOVA at .05 probability level. Result: Results showed that the REBT program significantly reduced the burnout level among English education undergraduates in the intervention group compared to the students in the no-intervention control group as measured by the OLBI-S subscales. Also, the students who benefited from the REBT program maintained reduced burnout levels when the researchers conducted a follow-up. Conclusion: Given the present finding, the REBT program is an effective intervention for preventing and managing burnout among students. The present study has important curriculum innovation implications as far as English education is concerned especially in the Nigerian context. This intervention program can be included in the students’ curriculum activities so as to equip the students with necessary therapeutic skills to manage burnout symptoms presently and in the future.

This study empirically examined the impact of external debt on economic growth. Also, the interactions of governance, external debt and external debt volatility were further investigated with emphasize on the interective effect of governance as proxied by Kaufmann, D., (2007) quality governance measures such as; government effectiveness, political stability, voice and accountability, regulatory quality and corruption control on economic growth. The study utilized annual time series data, focusing on thirty selected Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries for the period 1997 to 2020. The Dynamic System Generalised Method of Moments estimation technique was adopted while controlling for conventional sources of economic growth. Empirical findings from the study reveal that external debt and external debt volatility have a negative and significant impact on economic growth in SSA. Furthermore, the interaction of governance indicators, external debt and its volatility, had a positive impact on economic growth in SSA. This study recommends that SSA government should endeavor to avoid excessive external debt to promote the regions’ capacity to invest in her financial prospects, and to circumvent the danger of repayment of loans using her small income. The SSA governments should also improve the quality of governance by ensuring political stability, minimising corruption, implementing sound policies and regulations that can permit and promote economic growth through the development of the private sector. The governments must ensure that every borrowed debt is properly supervised and utilised for its purposes to spur economic growth. More so, the Guidotti-Greenspan rule of Reserve adequacy should be applied to keep excess borrowings in check.

This paper explored the impact of capital flow, human capital development on economic growth using annual time series data. To achieve our objectives; pairwise granger causality and dynamic autoregressive model was used. And we found no causality between capital flow (proxied by de jure and de facto measures of capital openness), human capital development (education expenditure and health expenditure) and economic growth. Again de jure (Deju) have a significant impact on economic growth. While foreign direct investment (fdin), foreign portfolio investment (pfin), credit to private sector (cpsn), external debt (debt), total education expenditure (exed), and total health expenditure (exht) have no significant impact on the growth rate.

The fiscal spending of the government have always been a strong instrument towards achieving development and recovering economy from recession. This paper investigates the long run and short run impact of three component of government expenditure (education, health, and consumption expenditure) on standard of living in Nigeria with time series data from 1981 to 2017. The study employs ordinary least square method of estimation on a range of equation models: Vector error correction model and the impulse responses function model. The result shows that fiscal spending on education, health, and consumption have a long run relationship with standard of living in Nigeria and the speed of adjustment towards long -run equilibrium is 61.45%, moderately high. The short run coefficient results reveals that education expenditure in both lag 1 and 2 have a positive and significant impact on standard of living while health and consumption expenditure have insignificant impact on standard of living in Nigeria. Using Impulse Response Function model, we found that none of our fiscal spending variables (education expenditure, health and consumer spending) were able to emit positive impulses/shocks on the standard of living in Nigeria. The study recommends that government should ensure that fiscal spending on education, health, and consumption should be well managed, accounted for and the method should be transparent to the populace.