Conflict of interest disclosure in orthopaedic and general surgical trauma literature

SignificanceFinancial relationships between industry and physicians are a key aspect for the advancement of surgical practice and training, but these relationships also result in a conflict of interest with respect to research. Financial payments to physicians are public within the United States in the Open Payments Database, but the rate of accurate financial disclosure of payments has not previously been studied in trauma surgery publications.ObjectiveTo determine the rate of accurate financial disclosure in major surgical trauma journals compared with the Open Payments Database.Materials and MethodsThe names of all authors publishing in The Journal of Orthopaedic Trauma, Injury, and The Journal of Trauma and Acute Care Surgery between 2015 and 2018 were obtained from MEDLINE. Non-physicians, physicians outside of the United States, physicians without payments in the Open Payments Database, and physicians with payments types of only “Food and Drink” were excluded. Financial disclosure statements were obtained from the journal websites and manually compared against Open Payments Database entries the year prior to submission and during the year of submission up until 3 months prior to publication for each individual physician. Main outcomes were accuracy of disclosure published with each article, total amount of payments received (disclosure or undisclosed), surgical subspecialty of the reporting physician. Statistical comparisons were made using Chi-square testing with significance defined as p<0.05.ResultsBetween 2015 and 2018, 5070 articles were published involving 28,948 authors. 2945 authors met inclusion criteria. 490 authors accurately disclosed their financial relationships with industry (16.6%). The median value of undisclosed payments was $22,140 IQR $6465, $77,221] which was significantly less than the medial value of disclosed payment of $66,433 IQR $24,624, $161,886], p<0.001 Orthopaedic surgeons disclosed at a higher rate (26.3%, 479/1818) than general surgeons (4.8%, 47/971), p<0.001.ConclusionsPhysician-industry relationships are key for advancing surgical practice and providing training to physicians. These relationships are not inherently unethical, but there is consistently high inaccuracy of financial disclosure across multiple trauma surgery journals which may indicate the need for further education on financial disclosures during surgical training or active obtainment of publicly available financial disclosures by journals.