The trends for the trend toward significance in the pediatric literature

Purpose This study is to examine whether the term trend toward statistical significance is used to describe statistically nonsignificant results in biomedical literature. We examined articles published in five high-impact pediatric journals, including The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health, The Journal of Pediatrics, Early Human Development, Frontiers in Pediatrics, and BMC Pediatrics to identify manuscripts where a trend was used to describe a statistically nonsignificant result, from January 2020 to December 2021, and, furthermore, for The Journal of Pediatrics, Early Human Development, and BMC Pediatrics from January 2010 to December 2011. We detected that a trend toward significance was used to describe a statistically nonsignificant result at least once in 146 articles (2.7%) during the period between 2020 and 2021 and in 97 articles (4.0%) during the period between 2010 and 2011. We found no significant difference in the proportion of published articles with inappropriate use of trend across journals belonging to the first quartile of impact compared to the second quartile or across journals publishing under the subscription model or open access policy compared to journals publishing solely under the open access policy, in any period. The overall proportion of the inappropriate use of trend declined significantly between 2010 and 2011 to 2020 and 2021 (p = 0.002, RR 0.66 95% CI 0.51-0.86).Conclusion: Trend statements were sporadically used to describe statistically nonsignificant results across pediatric literature. The inappropriate use of trend to describe almost significant differences could be misleading, and trend should be reserved only when a specific statistical test for trend has been performed, or in relation to appropriate scientific definitions.

Automated summary

The purpose of this study was to examine the use of the term "trend toward statistical significance" to describe statistically nonsignificant results in biomedical literature. The study found sporadic use of trend statements to describe statistically nonsignificant results in pediatric literature, and inappropriate use of trend could be misleading. Trend should only be used when a specific statistical test for trend has been performed or in relation to appropriate scientific definitions.