An assessment of the informative value of data sharing statements in clinical trial registries

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Title: An assessment of the informative value of data sharing statements in clinical trial registries
Authors: Ohmann, Christian, Panagiotopoulou, Maria, Canham, Steve, Felder, Gerd, Verde, Pablo Emilio
Source: BMC Med Res Methodol
BMC Medical Research Methodology, Vol 24, Iss 1, Pp 1-11 (2024)
Publisher Information: Springer Science and Business Media LLC, 2024.
Publication Year: 2024
Subject Terms: Medicine (General), Consensus, Information Dissemination, Research, Individual participant data, 03 medical and health sciences, Observer variation, R5-920, 0302 clinical medicine, Research Design, Expert, Humans, Data sharing, Data sharing statement, Registries, Information Dissemination/methods [MeSH], Clinical trial registry, Humans [MeSH], Research Design [MeSH], Consensus [MeSH], Registries [MeSH]
Description: Background The provision of data sharing statements (DSS) for clinical trials has been made mandatory by different stakeholders. DSS are a device to clarify whether there is intention to share individual participant data (IPD). What is missing is a detailed assessment of whether DSS are providing clear and understandable information about the conditions for data sharing of IPD for secondary use. Methods A random sample of 200 COVID-19 clinical trials with explicit DSS was drawn from the ECRIN clinical research metadata repository. The DSS were assessed and classified, by two experienced experts and one assessor with less experience in data sharing (DS), into different categories (unclear, no sharing, no plans, yes but vague, yes on request, yes with specified storage location, yes but with complex conditions). Results Between the two experts the agreement was moderate to substantial (kappa=0.62, 95% CI [0.55, 0.70]). Agreement considerably decreased when these experts were compared with a third person who was less experienced and trained in data sharing (“assessor”) (kappa=0.33, 95% CI [0.25, 0.41]; 0.35, 95% CI [0.27, 0.43]). Between the two experts and under supervision of an independent moderator, a consensus was achieved for those cases, where both experts had disagreed, and the result was used as “gold standard” for further analysis. At least some degree of willingness of DS (data sharing) was expressed in 63.5% (127/200) cases. Of these cases, around one quarter (31/127) were vague statements of support for data sharing but without useful detail. In around half of the cases (60/127) it was stated that IPD could be obtained by request. Only in in slightly more than 10% of the cases (15/127) it was stated that the IPD would be transferred to a specific data repository. In the remaining cases (21/127), a more complex regime was described or referenced, which could not be allocated to one of the three previous groups. As a result of the consensus meetings, the classification system was updated. Conclusion The study showed that the current DSS that imply possible data sharing are often not easy to interpret, even by relatively experienced staff. Machine based interpretation, which would be necessary for any practical application, is currently not possible. Machine learning and / or natural language processing techniques might improve machine actionability, but would represent a very substantial investment of research effort. The cheaper and easier option would be for data providers, data requestors, funders and platforms to adopt a clearer, more structured and more standardised approach to specifying, providing and collecting DSS. Trial registration The protocol for the study was pre-registered on ZENODO (https://zenodo.org/record/7064624#.Y4DIAHbMJD8).
Document Type: Article
Other literature type
Language: English
ISSN: 1471-2288
DOI: 10.1186/s12874-024-02168-8
Access URL: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38461273
https://doaj.org/article/f2f7618f0d804dbbbdb01165c6415b85
https://repository.publisso.de/resource/frl:6522538
Rights: CC BY
URL: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) ) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
Accession Number: edsair.doi.dedup.....fd8421007425b03310a150d8dd931f9e
Database: OpenAIRE
Description
Abstract:Background The provision of data sharing statements (DSS) for clinical trials has been made mandatory by different stakeholders. DSS are a device to clarify whether there is intention to share individual participant data (IPD). What is missing is a detailed assessment of whether DSS are providing clear and understandable information about the conditions for data sharing of IPD for secondary use. Methods A random sample of 200 COVID-19 clinical trials with explicit DSS was drawn from the ECRIN clinical research metadata repository. The DSS were assessed and classified, by two experienced experts and one assessor with less experience in data sharing (DS), into different categories (unclear, no sharing, no plans, yes but vague, yes on request, yes with specified storage location, yes but with complex conditions). Results Between the two experts the agreement was moderate to substantial (kappa=0.62, 95% CI [0.55, 0.70]). Agreement considerably decreased when these experts were compared with a third person who was less experienced and trained in data sharing (“assessor”) (kappa=0.33, 95% CI [0.25, 0.41]; 0.35, 95% CI [0.27, 0.43]). Between the two experts and under supervision of an independent moderator, a consensus was achieved for those cases, where both experts had disagreed, and the result was used as “gold standard” for further analysis. At least some degree of willingness of DS (data sharing) was expressed in 63.5% (127/200) cases. Of these cases, around one quarter (31/127) were vague statements of support for data sharing but without useful detail. In around half of the cases (60/127) it was stated that IPD could be obtained by request. Only in in slightly more than 10% of the cases (15/127) it was stated that the IPD would be transferred to a specific data repository. In the remaining cases (21/127), a more complex regime was described or referenced, which could not be allocated to one of the three previous groups. As a result of the consensus meetings, the classification system was updated. Conclusion The study showed that the current DSS that imply possible data sharing are often not easy to interpret, even by relatively experienced staff. Machine based interpretation, which would be necessary for any practical application, is currently not possible. Machine learning and / or natural language processing techniques might improve machine actionability, but would represent a very substantial investment of research effort. The cheaper and easier option would be for data providers, data requestors, funders and platforms to adopt a clearer, more structured and more standardised approach to specifying, providing and collecting DSS. Trial registration The protocol for the study was pre-registered on ZENODO (https://zenodo.org/record/7064624#.Y4DIAHbMJD8).
ISSN:14712288
DOI:10.1186/s12874-024-02168-8