Table 1.

Spin Types and Frequencies (%) in Abstracts (n = 43).

Nine Most Severe Types of Spin	No. (%) of Abstracts Containing Spin
1. Conclusion contains recommendations for clinical practice not supported by the findings.	3 (7.0)
2. Title claims or suggests a beneficial effect of the experimental intervention not supported by the findings.	0 (0)
3. Selective reporting of or overemphasis on efficacy outcomes or analysis favoring the beneficial effect of the experimental intervention.	23 (53.5)
4. Conclusion claims safety based on non–statistically significant results with a wide confidence interval.	1 (5.3)a
5. Conclusion claims the beneficial effect of the experimental treatment despite high risk of bias in primary studies.	7 (16.3)
6. Selective reporting of or overemphasis on harm outcomes or analysis favoring the safety of the experimental intervention.	4 (9.3)
7. Conclusion extrapolates the review’s findings to a different intervention (ie, claiming efficacy of 1 specific intervention although the review covers a class of several interventions).	0 (0)
8. Conclusion extrapolates the review’s findings from a surrogate marker or a specific outcome to the global improvement of the disease.	0 (0)
9. Conclusion claims the beneficial effect of the experimental treatment despite reporting bias.	0 (0)

^a As a result of 24 studies not investigating interventions necessitating safety outcomes or measures, n = 19.