The Fragility and Reliability of Conclusions of Anesthesia and Critical Care Randomized Trials With Statistically Significant Findings: A Systematic Review

Objectives: The Fragility Index, which represents the number of patients responsible for a statistically significant finding, has been suggested as an aid for interpreting the robustness of results from clinical trials. A small Fragility Index indicates that the statistical significance of a trial depends on only a few events. Our objectives were to calculate the Fragility Index of statistically significant results from randomized controlled trials of anesthesia and critical care interventions and to determine the frequency of distorted presentation of results or "spin". Data Sources: We systematically searched MEDLINE from January 01, 2007, to February 22, 2017, to identify randomized controlled trials exploring the effect of critical care medicine or anesthesia interventions. Study Selection: Studies were included if they randomized patients 1:1 into two parallel arms and reported at least one statistically significant (p

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