Reproducibility of clinical research in critical care: a scoping review

BACKGROUND: The ability to reproduce experiments is a defining principle of science. Reproducibility of clinical research has received relatively little scientific attention. However, it is important as it may inform clinical practice, research agendas, and the design of future studies. METHODS: We used scoping review methods to examine reproducibility within a cohort of randomized trials examining clinical critical care research and published in the top general medical and critical care journals. To identify relevant clinical practices, we searched the New England Journal of Medicine, The Lancet, and JAMA for randomized trials published up to April 2016. To identify a comprehensive set of studies for these practices, included articles informed secondary searches within other high-impact medical and specialty journals. We included late-phase randomized controlled trials examining therapeutic clinical practices in adults admitted to general medical-surgical or specialty intensive care units (ICUs). Included articles were classified using a reproducibility framework. An original study was the first to evaluate a clinical practice. A reproduction attempt re-evaluated that practice in a new set of participants. RESULTS: Overall, 158 practices were examined in 275 included articles. A reproduction attempt was identified for 66 practices (42%, 95% CI 33–50%). Original studies reported larger effects than reproduction attempts (primary endpoint, risk difference 16.0%, 95% CI 11.6–20.5% vs. 8.4%, 95% CI 6.0–10.8%, P = 0.003). More than half of clinical practices with a reproduction attempt demonstrated effects that were inconsistent with the original study (56%, 95% CI 42–68%), among which a large number were reported to be efficacious in the original study and to lack efficacy in the reproduction attempt (34%, 95% CI 19–52%). Two practices reported to be efficacious in the original study were found to be harmful in the reproduction attempt. CONCLUSIONS: A minority of critical care practices with research published in high-profile journals were evaluated for reproducibility; less than half had reproducible effects. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s12916-018-1018-6) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.