Trial characteristics
| Characteristic | All articles (n=247) | Articles reporting a treatment effect (TE) that was not statistically significant, the CI of the TE and a value for the TE that the authors considered to be clinically meaningful (n=78) |
| Journal | ||
| New England Journal of Medicine | 105 (43%) | 31 (40%) |
| JAMA | 61 (25%) | 22 (28%) |
| The Lancet | 50 (20%) | 11 (14%) |
| British Medical Journal | 13 (5%) | 8 (10%) |
| JAMA Internal Medicine | 11 (4%) | 1 (1%) |
| Annals of Internal Medicine | 7 (3%) | 5 (6%) |
| Design | ||
| Parallel group | 245 (99%) | 78 (100%) |
| Cross-over | 2 (1%) | 0 (0%) |
| Number randomised | 480 (224–1195) | 730 (311–1880) |
| Medical specialty | ||
| Cardiovascular | 55 (22%) | 23 (29%) |
| Infectious disease | 38 (15%) | 12 (15%) |
| Cancer | 31 (13%) | 4 (5%) |
| Neurology (including pain) | 22 (9%) | 7 (9%) |
| Pulmonary | 13 (5%) | 6 (8%) |
| Psychiatry | 12 (5%) | 1 (1%) |
| Other* | 76 (31%) | 25 (32%) |
| Type of intervention | ||
| Treatment | 183 (74%) | 52 (67%) |
| Prevention | 64 (26%) | 26 (33%) |
| Sponsor | ||
| Industry | 134 (54%) | 36 (46%) |
| Other | 113 (46%) | 42 (54%) |
Values are n (%) or median (IQR).
*Other includes areas represented by fewer than 10 trials including urology, orthopaedics, diabetes, immune disorders and so on.