Does a monetary incentive improve the response to a postal questionnaire in a randomised controlled trial? : the MINT incentive study

Background: Sending a monetary incentive with postal questionnaires has been found to improve the proportion of responders, in research in non-healthcare settings. However, there is little research on use of incentives to improve follow-up rates in clinical trials, and existing studies are inconclusive. We conducted a randomised trial among participants in the Managing Injuries of the Neck Trial (MINT) to investigate the effects on the proportion of questionnaires returned and overall non-response of sending a £5 gift voucher with a follow-up questionnaire. Methods: Participants in MINT were randomised to receive either: (a) a £5 gift voucher (incentive group) or (b) no gift voucher (no incentive group), with their 4 month or 8 month follow-up questionnaire. We recorded, for each group, the number of questionnaires returned, the number returned without any chasing from the study office, the overall number of non-responders (after all chasing efforts by the study office), and the costs of following up each group. Results: 2144 participants were randomised, 1070 to the incentive group and 1074 to the no incentive group. The proportion of questionnaires returned (RR 1.10 (95% CI 1.05, 1.16)) and the proportion returned without chasing (RR 1.14 (95% CI 1.05, 1.24) were higher in the incentive group, and the overall non-response rate was lower (RR 0.68 (95% CI 0.53, 0.87)). Adjustment for injury severity and hospital of recruitment to MINT made no difference to these results, and there were no differences in results between the 4-month and 8-month follow up questionnaires. Analysis of costs suggested a cost of £67.29 per additional questionnaire returned. Conclusion: Monetary incentives may be an effective way to increase the proportion of postal questionnaires returned and minimise loss to follow-up in clinical trials

A national survey of clinical practice for the management of whiplash-associated disorders in UK emergency departments

Objective: To undertake a national survey to determine current practice for the management of whiplash injuries in UK emergency departments (ED). Methods: Postal questionnaire survey. 316 lead consultants from all UK ED with annual new attendances of over 50 000 people were asked to indicate the use of a range of treatments and the frequency with which these treatments were used. Samples of written advice were requested and content analysis was conducted and compared with survey responses. Results: The response rate was 79% (251/316). The intervention most frequently used was verbal advice to exercise, reported by 84% of respondents for most or all cases, and advice against the use of a collar (83%). Other treatments reported as being used frequently were written advice and anti-inflammatory medication. 106 consultants (42%) provided a sample of written materials. Reference to expected recovery and encouragement for early return to activities were included in less than 6%. Nearly 50% of written materials contained information on how to use a soft collar and 61% contained information on solicitors and pursuing a personal injury claim. There were important differences between reported verbal behaviours and written advice. Conclusion: Verbal advice is the primary method for managing whiplash injuries in ED and is usually supplemented by written advice. Within individual hospitals there is a lack of consistency between verbal and written advice. The promotion of personal injury claims is a common feature of written advice. Research is required to develop effective and consistent models of advice

APC-targeted proinsulin expression inactivates insulin-specific memory CD8+ T cells in NOD mice

Type 1 diabetes (T1D) results from T-cell-mediated autoimmune destruction of pancreatic β cells. Effector T-cell responses emerge early in disease development and expand as disease progresses. Following β-cell destruction, a long-lived T-cell memory is generated that represents a barrier to islet transplantation and other cellular insulin-replacement therapies. Development of effective immunotherapies that control or ablate β-cell destructive effector and memory T-cell responses has the potential to prevent disease progression and recurrence. Targeting antigen expression to antigen-presenting cells inactivates cognate CD8+ effector and memory T-cell responses and has therapeutic potential. Here we investigated this in the context of insulin-specific responses in the non-obese diabetic mouse where genetic immune tolerance defects could impact on therapeutic tolerance induction. Insulin-specific CD8+ memory T cells transferred to mice expressing proinsulin in antigen-presenting cells proliferated in response to transgenically expressed proinsulin and the majority were rapidly deleted. A small proportion of transferred insulin-specific Tmem remained undeleted and these were antigen-unresponsive, exhibited reduced T cell receptor (TCR) expression and H-2Kd/insB15-23 tetramer binding and expressed co-inhibitory molecules. Expression of proinsulin in antigen-presenting cells also abolished the diabetogenic capacity of CD8+ effector T cells. Therefore, destructive insulin-specific CD8+ T cells are effectively inactivated by enforced proinsulin expression despite tolerance defects that exist in diabetes-prone NOD mice. These findings have important implications in developing immunotherapeutic approaches to T1D and other T-cell-mediated autoimmune diseases

Investigating the veracity of a sample of divergent published trial data in spinal pain

Evidence-based medicine is replete with studies assessing quality and bias, but few evaluating research integrity or trustworthiness. A recent Cochrane review of psychological interventions for chronic pain identified trials with a shared lead author with highly divergent results. We sought to systematically identify all similar trials from this author to explore their risk of bias, governance procedures, and trustworthiness. We searched OVID MEDLINE, EMBASE, CENTRAL, and PEDro from 2010 to December 22, 2021 for trials. We contacted the authors requesting details of trial registration, ethical approval, protocol, and access to the trial data for verification. We used the Cochrane risk-of-bias tool and the Cochrane Pregnancy and Childbirth group's Trustworthiness Screening Tool to guide systematic exploration of trustworthiness. Ten trials were included: 9 compared cognitive behavioural therapy and physical exercise to usual care, exercise alone, or physiotherapy and 1 compared 2 brief cognitive behavioural therapy programmes. Eight trials reported results divergent from the evidence base. Assessment of risk of bias and participant characteristics identified no substantial concerns. Responses from the lead author did not satisfactorily explain this divergence. Trustworthiness screening identified concerns about research governance, data plausibility at baseline, the results, and apparent data duplication. We discuss the findings within the context of methods for establishing the trustworthiness of research findings generally. Important concerns regarding the trustworthiness of these trials reduce our confidence in them. They should probably not be used to inform the results and conclusions of systematic reviews, in clinical training, policy documents, or any relevant instruction regarding adult chronic pain management

High levels of childhood obesity observed among 3- to 7-year-old New Zealand Pacific children is a public health concern.

This cross-sectional, community-based survey was designed to assess attained growth and body composition of 3- to 7-y-old Pacific children (n = 21 boys and 20 girls) living in Dunedin, New Zealand, and to examine nondietary factors associated with the percentage of body fat. Fat mass, lean tissue mass and the percentage of body fat were measured using dual energy X-ray absorptiometry. One trained anthropometrist also measured height, weight, skinfolds (triceps, subscapular) and circumferences (mid-upper arm, chest, waist, calf). Compared with the National Center for Health Statistics and National Health and Examination Surveys I and II reference data, these Pacific children were tall and heavy for their age with high arm-muscle-area-for-height. Median (quartiles) Z-scores for height and BMI-for-age and arm-muscle-area-for-height were 1.33 (0.60, 2.15), 1.20 (0.74, 4.43) and 1.09 (0.63, 1.85), respectively. Their median (quartile) percentage of body fat was 21.8% (15.0, 35.5) of which 38.5% was located in the trunk. The estimated percentage of children classified as obese ranged from 34 to 49% depending on the criterion used. Over 60% of the children had levels of trunk fat above 1 SD of reported age- and sex-specific Z-scores for New Zealand children. The nondietary factors examined (hours of television viewing and hours playing organized sports, as reported by parents) were not associated with variations in the percentage of body fat, after adjusting for age, sex and birth weight. These extremely high levels of obesity and truncal fat among very young New Zealand children will have major public health implications as these children age