Publication trends of clinical trials performed in South Africa

Abstract

Background. Investigators and sponsors of clinical trials have an ethical obligation to disseminate clinical trial results, whether positive or negative, in a timely manner. Objectives. To determine the publication rate and average time to reporting for clinical trials carried out in South Africa (SA) and to explore factors indicating whether a study is published or not. Conclusion. The absence of complete outcomes data from SA clinical trials warrants utmost attention. The study puts forward a case to the regulatory body and research ethics committees to compel all data from clinical trials to be made accessible to clinicians and the public in general by being published in an easily accessible form and in a timely manner.

Unearthing student teachers’ Physics misconceptions during Work-Integrated Learning

“…In South Africa, Physics is offered jointly with Chemistry under the discipline Physical Science for high school learners between grades 10 and 12. Over the years, the pass rate and quality of the grade 12 final matriculation results in Physical Science has been poor [3], [4]. The study in [5] confirms that one of the main reasons for poor performance in Physical Science is that a significant number of teachers may not have specialized in teaching both Physics and Chemistry, and in this particular study, most of the teachers were not competent to teach Physics at the required level.…”

Trends in clinical trial registration in sub-Saharan Africa between 2010 and 2020: a cross-sectional review of three clinical trial registries

“…In contrast, more than half of those in the ISRCTN were reported. While there is limited literature on this important trend in SSA generally, a study found that about 48.6% of completed trials in the South African National Clinical Trials Register (SANCTR) were registered within a median time of 2 years of completion and the majority of the published trials were those with a positive outcome [22], revealing the possibility of publication bias. Our study relied solely on completed trials with results available in the study field and did not further verify if these studies have been INGO international non-governmental organisations; this will not equal total completed trials because sponsor type was obtained by extracting the common theme from a free text, indicating the possibility of a double count published in peer-reviewed journals as was done in the South African study.…”

Publication and associated factors of clinical trials registered in Peru

“…This percentage of publication is higher compared with the CTs registered at ClinicalTrials.gov (46%) and those registered at the South African Registry of Clinical Trials (49%). 6,25 In contrast, CTs registered with the National Institute of Health from the United States and Norway have a higher proportion of CTs published (93% and 71%, respectively). 23,31 The percentage of published CTs is a good indicator of monitoring national or regional registries.…”

“…We used an ad hoc methodology based on previous papers about CTs' publication. [23][24][25] Briefly, we reviewed Medline/PubMed, Scopus, and Google Scholar using a combination of the following entry terms: "Responsible author last name," "Intervention," "NCT number," and "Applicant institution." We performed a double-check using matching criteria between identified reference and CT. For this process, we took in account the study aim, design, type of intervention, sample size, and the number of sites.…”

“…28 However, our results differ from a study in South Africa, where the most studied interventions were those designed to treat respiratory diseases and HIV/AIDS infections. 25 The variability in terms of morbidity in every region can explain these differences. Overall, acute respiratory diseases and cardiovascular diseases cause the highest mortality and disease burden in Peru.…”