Abstract
Introduction Activities promoting research reproducibility and transparency are crucial for generating trustworthy evidence. Evaluation of smoking interventions is one area where vested interests may motivate reduced reproducibility and transparency. Aims Assess markers of transparency and reproducibility in smoking behaviour change intervention evaluation reports. Methods One hundred evaluation reports of smoking behaviour change intervention randomised controlled trials published in 2018-2019 were identified. Reproducibility markers of pre-registration; protocol sharing; data, material, and analysis script sharing; replication of a previous study; and open access publication were coded in identified reports. Transparency markers of funding and conflict of interest declarations were also coded. Coding was performed by two researchers, with inter-rater reliability calculated using Krippendorff's alpha. Results Seventy-one percent of reports were open access, and 73% were pre-registered. However, there are only 13% provided accessible materials, 7% accessible data, and 1% accessible analysis scripts. No reports were replication studies. Ninety-four percent of reports provided a funding source statement, and eighty-eight percent of reports provided a conflict of interest statement. Conclusions Open data, materials, analysis, and replications are rare in smoking behaviour change interventions, whereas funding source and conflict of interest declarations are common. Future smoking research should be more reproducible to enable knowledge accumulation. This study was pre-registered: https://osf.io/yqj5p.
Highlights
Activities promoting research reproducibility and transparency are crucial for generating trustworthy evidence
Researchers, journals, and funding organisations across psychology and health sciences are contributing to reforming scientific practice to improve the credibility and accessibility of research [1, 7]
Scripts can be made more reproducible by marking their code with step-by-step comments, improving clarity and replication [11]
Summary
Activities promoting research reproducibility and transparency are crucial for generating trustworthy evidence. Reproducibility markers of pre-registration; protocol sharing; data, material, and analysis script sharing; replication of a previous study; and open access publication were coded in identified reports. Materials, analysis, and replications are rare in smoking behaviour change interventions, whereas funding source and conflict of interest declarations are common. Pre-registration and protocols specify the hypotheses, methods, and analysis plan to be used in proposed subsequent research in repositories such as Open Science Framework and AsPredicted. Such specification is designed to reduce researcher degrees of freedom and undisclosed flexibility, ensuring features such as primary and secondary hypotheses and analysis plans remain fixed and preventing “p-hacking” [9]. Materials (such as intervention protocols and questionnaires), data, and analysis scripts can be made available by uploading to repositories such as Open
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
