Randomised trials relevant to mental health conducted in low and middle-income countries: protocol for a survey of studies published in 1991, 1995 and 2000 and assessment of their relevance

BACKGROUND A substantial proportion of the psychiatric burden of disease falls on the world's poorest nations. Despite this, relatively little is known about the quality and content of clinical research undertaken in these countries, or the relevance of the interventions evaluated and specifically that of randomised trials. This project aims to survey the content, quality and accessibility of a sample of trials relevant to mental health conducted within low and middle-income countries; to compare these with studies conducted in high-income countries; and to assess their relevance for the needs of low and middle-income countries. METHODS An extensive search for all trials, or possible trials, published in 1991, 1995 and 2000 with participants in low and middle-income countries has already been conducted. Studies evaluating prevention or treatment of a mental health problem within these three years will be identified and further searches conducted to assess completeness of the initial search. Data on study quality and characteristics will be extracted from each report. Accessibility will be estimated based on whether each citation is available on MEDLINE. Trials relevant to schizophrenia will be compared with a random sample of schizophrenia trials from high-income countries in the same years. Topics covered by the trials will be compared with the estimated burden of disease. CONCLUSION Trials and systematic reviews of trials are the gold standard of evaluation of care and increasingly provide the basis for recommendations to clinicians, to providers of care and to policy makers. Results from this study will present the first assessment of the scope, quality and accessibility of mental health trials in low and middle-income countries

Corporate social responsibility and firm value: disaggregating the effects on cash flow, risk and growth

The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10551-013-1898-5This paper examines how the stock market values corporate social responsibility (CSR). We consider the multidimensionality of CSR and make a distinction between strengths and concerns. We disaggregate the effect on value by considering differences between forecasted profitability, long term growth and the cost of capital. For individual dimensions, in general strengths are valued positively, but weaknesses do not always detract from value. However, when an overall measure of CSR performance is employed, the result is a significant negative valuation of CSR concerns. These valuation effects are principally driven by CSR performance associated with better long run growth prospects, with a minor contribution made by a lower cost of equity capital

Stock market patterns around directors’ trades: effects of director category and gender on market timing

Working paper; first version September 2007; this version July 2009We examine whether directors of UK companies can time the market when they trade in their own-company stock, using a comprehensive dataset on all directors’ trades from 1994-2006 for FTSE All Share companies and AIM-listed companies. We find that in the 20 days before a director’s buy (sell) trade prices fall (rise) such that abnormal returns are -2.48% (+2.17%); in the 20 days after a directors’ buy (sell) trade, abnormal returns are 1.55% (-1.19%). We go on to examine whether the category (executive or non-executive) and the gender (male or female) of the director differ in the information they posses about their own firms, how they trade on this information and how markets respond to their trades. We test both the information hierarchy hypothesis, that more senior corporate insiders have access to better information, and also a characteristics-based trading hypothesis, that the director’s trading pattern depends on the gender of the director. We find some support for the information hierarchy hypothesis, but no difference in the trading patterns and stock market response to directors’ gender differences, after conditioning on the category of director

The Fama-French and momentum portfolios and factors in the UK

Working paperThe primary aim of this paper is to make available the Fama-French and Momentum portfolios and factors for the UK market to the wide community of UK academic and post-graduate researchers. As Michou, Mouselli and Stark (2007) note, there is no freely downloadable equivalent to the data on Ken French’s US website, and this paper is directed at remedying this situation. We depart from the majority of previous UK studies (with the exception of Agarwal and Taffler, 2008) by forming portfolios on 30th September each year, which we argue is more appropriate for the UK. Although we construct factors and portfolios for the UK, by extending tests to portfolios formed on differing bases, we add to the caution expressed in Michou, Mouselli and Stark (2007) on whether such factor models completely capture risk in the UK. Our recommendation is that any tests of long run abnormal returns in UK be based on characteristic-matched portfolios. The data underlying this paper can be downloaded from: http://xfi.exeter.ac.uk/researchandpublications/portfoliosandfactors

Commentary on 'Case for BJOG compliance with prospective trial registration

Prospective registration of clinical trials before enrolment of the first participant is an ethical and scientific. Registering clinical trials reduces duplication of research and aids better identification of gaps in our knowledge, as when all research on a topic can be identified it is easier to know when a new study is not needed, as the question has already been answered; and if all research is identified it becomes easier to see where there are gaps, and so where new studies are needed. Prospective registration of clinical trials reduces publication bias and bias due to selective reporting of studies with equivocal or ‘negative’ results, since studies are identified and registered before their results are known, and there is less likelihood that our understanding of research evidence is distorted by studies that have disappeared without a trace, or are slow to appear. Prospective registration of trials additionally reduces bias due to selective reporting of outcomes that are ‘positive’ as outcomes are disclosed at registration and can be compared with published reports. Prospective registration thus contributes to less scientific misconduct, as failure to report research findings accurately and make them publicly available, is a betrayal of trust of the people who participated in that research, and can lead to harm in patient care. Prospective registration also makes it harder to fabricate research results, and can result in less scientific frau