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Letter
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  1. Michael Saraga,
  2. Friedrich Stiefel
  1. Service of Liaison Psychiatry, University Hospital of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland
  1. Correspondence to Dr Michael Saraga, Service of Liaison Psychiatry, University Hospital of Lausanne, Lausanne 1011, Switzerland; michael.saraga{at}chuv.ch

https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjebm-2019-111267

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    The recent article by Jellison et al shows how abstracts reporting randomised controlled trials of therapeutic interventions in psychiatry tend to be ‘spinned’ to suggest positive effects of treatments, even when the actual results do not.1 Although the authors do not explicitly address the reasons for such spinning, they suggest that unethical researchers ‘beautify’ their results to increase chances of publication. However, they mention a study by Lazarus et al who found reviewers recommending positive spin in their comments,2 hinting …

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    Footnotes

    • Contributors MS wrote a first draft of the letter; both authors then revised the manuscript.

    • Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; internally peer reviewed.