Dental Research Waste in Design, Analysis, and Reporting: A Scoping Review
Open accessAbstract
Research waste is highly prevalent across biomedical investigations. We aimed to assess the evidence on the extent of research waste in dental research. We performed a scoping review of empirical evaluations of dental studies assessing the prevalence and impact of limitations in design, conduct, analysis, and reporting of research. PubMed was searched using specific terms to retrieve studies dealing with design, conduct, analysis, and reporting of studies in dentistry, with no year or language restrictions. Of the 1,807 publications identified from the search and from manual searches, 71 were included in this review. The topic and article selection was based on the expert opinion of the authors. The existing evidence suggests that, although there are improvements over time, substantial deficiencies in all areas (design, conduct, analysis, reporting) were prevalent in dental research publications. Waste in research is a multifaceted problem without a simple solution. However, an appreciation of optimal research design and execution is a prerequisite and should be underpinned by policies that include appropriate training in research methods and properly aligned incentives.
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“In dentistry, although most journals endorse OSPs, such as the use of reporting guidelines and recommendations for data sharing [18], very few articles have made their crude data available [19–22], and most studies have not registered the research protocol prospectively [19].”
- Authors
- Pandis, N., Fleming, P. S., Katsaros, C., & Ioannidis, J. P. A.
- Affiliations
- University of Bern (CH)
- Queen Mary University of London (GB)
- Stanford University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Pandis, N.
- Venue
- Journal of Dental Research
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 2020-10-15
- Volume
- 100
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 245-252
- ISSN
- 0022-0345 (ISSN-L)
- 1544-0591
- OpenAlex
- W3092659595
- Semantic Scholar
- 8a7c9ed50dfed16f39de72c62b5ac195a859e719
- Cited by
- 58
- References
- 64
- Citations by year
- 2026: 7 · 2025: 9 · 2024: 19 · 2023: 7 · 2022: 9 · 2021: 6 · 2020: 1
- FWCI
- 1.19
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- qmro.qmul.ac.uk
- Locations
- Journal of Dental Research (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Queen Mary Research Online (Queen Mary University of London) (submittedVersion)
- Bern Open Repository and Information System (University of Bern) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Statistics, Probability and Uncertainty › Meta-analysis and systematic reviews
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › Health Information Management › Methodologies in Health Research and Practice
- Social Sciences › Safety Research › Academic integrity and plagiarism
- Keywords
- research waste, dental research, study design flaws, research conduct, reporting quality, research methodology training, research incentives, research quality
- MeSH terms
- Research Design, Dental Research
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