| Study characteristics |
| Methods |
To explore whether financial conflicts interests among authors of clinical guidelines on drugs for glycaemic control in type 2 diabetes are associated with recommendation of specific drugs. Clinical guidelines published between February 2012 and June 2012 |
| Data |
13 clinical guidelines |
| Comparisons |
Clinical guidelines with financial conflicts of interest (defined as having at least one author with financial interests in companies that manufacture the drugs recommended in the clinical guidelines) and clinical guidelines without financial conflicts of interest |
| Outcomes |
Recommendations (favourable recommendations defined as recommending a drug in the guidance portion of the guideline) |
| Funding source |
The study was funded by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and no additional funding related to any for‐profit organisation was disclosed |
| Declaration of conflicts of interest |
The authors disclosed no conflicts of interest related to any for‐profit organisation |
| Notes |
|
| Risk of bias |
| Item |
Authors' judgement |
Support for judgement |
| Adequate document inclusion process |
Yes |
Two authors independently assessed clinical guidelines for inclusion (according to personal correspondence with lead author) |
| Adequate coding of conflicts of interest |
Yes |
Two authors independently coded each clinical guideline. A third author checked the coding of a sample of the included clinical guidelines and looked through any outliers or notable information (according to personal correspondence with lead author) |
| Adequate coding of recommendations |
Yes |
Two authors independently coded the recommendations of each clinical guideline |
| Adequate dealing with confounding |
No |
Compared clinical guidelines of the same drugs, but used for different populations (adults, children, pregnant women) |
