Main collaborators: Mark Bolland, Andrew Grey, Greg Gamble (University of Auckland, New Zealand).
These studies receive no specific funding. Mark Bolland is the recipient of an HRC Clinical Practitioner Fellowship New Zealand.
Statistical package for randomised trial assessment: https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=reappraised
Blog: https://reappraised.wordpress.com/
Contacts
- Alison Avenell; a.avenell@abdn.ac.uk
Status
OngoingPublications
Grey A, Avenell A, Bolland MJ. Inconsistency in publishers’ responses to integrity concerns about published research. Evidence and suggested improvements. J Clin Epidemiol 2025;186:111918
Wilkinson J, Heal C, Antoniou GA, Flemyng E, Ahnström L, Alteri A, Avenell A, et al. Assessing the feasibility and impact of clinical trial trustworthiness checks via an application to Cochrane Reviews: Stage 2 of the INSPECT-SR project. J Clin Epidemiol 2025;184:111824
Bolland MJ, Avenell A, Grey A. Accuracy and distribution of baseline categorical variables and p-values in spine randomized controlled trials. R Soc Open Sci. 2025;12(1):240170.
Grey A, Avenell A, Bolland MJ, Thornton J. The fetal pillow deflates - lessons for all. BJOG 2025;4:429-32
Bolland MJ, Avenell A, Grey A. Publication integrity: what is it, why does it matter, how it is safeguarded and how could we do better? Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand. 2024;55(2):267-86.
Wilkinson J, Heal C, Antoniou GA, Flemyng E, Avenell A, Barbour V, et al. A survey of experts to identify methods to detect problematic studies: Stage 1 of the INSPECT-SR Project. J Clin Epidemiol 2024;175:111512
Grey A, Avenell A, Klein AA, Byrne JA, Wilmshurst P, Bolland MJ. How to improve assessments of publication integrity. Nature 2024; 632; 26-8.
Bolland MB, Avenell A, Grey A. Statistical techniques to assess publication integrity in groups of randomized trials: a narrative review. J Clin Epidemiol 2024; 170 (2024) 111365.
Bolland MJ, Avenell A, Grey A. Baseline categorical variables in spine randomized controlled trials. 2023:PREPRINT (Version 1, 19 November 2023) available at Research Square [https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-3622260/v1].
Wilkinson J, Heal C, Antoniou GA, Alfirevic Z, Avenell A, Barbour V, et al. Protocol for the development of a tool (INSPECT-SR) to identify problematic randomised controlled trials in systematic reviews of health interventions. medRxiv preprint 2023 doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2023.09.21.23295626
Bolland MJ, Gamble GD, Avenell A, Cooper D, Grey A. Distributions of baseline categorical variables were different from the expected distributions in randomized trials with integrity concerns. J Clin Epidemiol 2023;154:117-124.
Bolland MJ, Avenell A, Grey A. Responses to concerns raised about publications don’t address the concerns raised. Br J Pain 2023;17:426-427.
Bolland MJ, Avenell A, Grey A. Letter to the editor: Validity of tests for publication integrity. International Journal of Gynecology & Obstetrics 2023 DOI: 10.1002/ijgo.15182
Grey A, Avenell A, Bolland M. Procrastination and inconsistency: expressions of concern for publications with compromised integrity. Accountability in Research 2022; https://doi.org/10.1080/08989621.2022.2112572
Avenell A, Bolland M, Gamble GD, Grey A. A randomized trial alerting authors, with or without co-authors or editors, that research they cited in systematic reviews and guidelines has been retracted. Accountability in Research 2022; https://doi.org/10.1080/08989621.2022.2082290
Bolland MJ, Gamble GD, Avenell A, Grey A. Identical summary statistics were uncommon in randomized trials and cohort studies. J Clin Epidemiol 2021;136:180-188.
Grey A, Avenell A, Bolland M. Timeliness and content of retraction notices for publications by a single research group: an observational study. Accountability in Research 2022;6:347-378. doi: 10.1080/08989621.2021.1920409
Bolland M, Grey A, Avenell A. Citation of retracted publications: a challenging problem. Accountability in Research 2021; DOI: 10.1080/08989621.2021.1886933
Bolland MJ, Gamble GD, Avenell A, Cooper D, Grey A, Lumley T. Participant withdrawals were unusually distributed in randomized trials with integrity concerns: a statistical investigation. J Clin Epidemiol 2021;131:22-9.
Bolland M, Grey A, Avenell A, Klein A. Correcting the scientific record – a broken system? Accountability in Research 2021;28:265-279.
Grey A, Avenell A, Gamble GD, Bolland M. Assessing and raising concerns about duplicate publication, authorship misconduct and data errors in a body of preclinical research. Sci Eng Ethics 2020;26:2069-96.
Bolland MJ, Gamble GD, Grey A, Avenell A. Empirically generated reference proportions for baseline p values from rounded summary statistics. Anaesthesia 2020;75:1685-1687.
Grey A, Bolland MJ, Avenell A, Klein A, Gunsalus CK. Check for publication integrity before misconduct. Nature 2020;577:167-9.
Avenell A, Stewart F, Grey A, Gamble G, Bolland M. An investigation into the impact and implications of published papers from retracted research: systematic search of affected literature. BMJ Open 2019; 9:e031909. doi:10.1136/bmjopen-2019-031909
Bolland MJ, Gamble GD, Avenell A, Grey A, Lumley T. Baseline P value distributions in randomized trials were uniform for continuous but not categorical variables. J Clin Epidemiol 2019;112:67-76.
Bolland MJ, Gamble GD, Avenell A, Grey A. Rounding, but not randomization method, non-normality, or correlation, affected baseline P-value distributions in randomized trials. J Clin Epidemiol 2019;110:50-62. Corrigendum https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclinepi.2020.05.017
Grey A, Bolland M, Gamble G, Avenell A. Quality of reports of investigations of research integrity by academic institutions. Research Integrity and Peer Review 2019;4:3
Bolland MJ, Avenell A, Gamble GD, Buranyi S, Grey A. A randomised investigation of journal responses to academic and journalist enquiry about possible scientific misconduct. BMC Research Notes 2018;11:521
Bolland MJ, Avenell A, Gamble GD, Grey A. Systematic review and statistical analysis of the integrity of 33 randomized controlled trials. Neurology 2016; 87: 1-12.