TY - JOUR T1 - Are conflict of interest declarations appropriate to allow sufficient consideration of potential bias in presentations? JF - Future Healthcare Journal JO - Future Healthc J SP - 226 LP - 229 DO - 10.7861/fhj.2020-0018 VL - 7 IS - 3 AU - William Crawford AU - C Fielder Camm AU - Ishika Prachee AU - Jack Olivarius-McAllister AU - Matthew R Ginks AU - Edward D Nicol Y1 - 2020/10/01 UR - http://www.rcpjournals.org/content/7/3/226.abstract N2 - Background Potential conflicts of interest (CoI) are common in medical research, necessitating the use of CoI declarations. There is currently no consensus document or external authority guiding CoI declarations in conference settings, resulting in declarations of variable quality and utility.Methods We explored four CoI declaration parameters (sufficient slide display time; the presence of any verbal explanation pertaining to relevant CoI; the use of an adequate font size; and whether the nature and relevance of the CoI was described). Parameters were graded from one to three points, with the sum of parameters providing an overall declaration quality out of 12. We then applied this scoring system to recordings of presentations from the British Cardiovascular Society (BCS) annual conference 2018 which were available online.Results Sixty-nine presentations were suitable for inclusion, of which 47 (68%) contained a CoI statement. Thirty-six of the 47 (77%) presentations declared that they had no CoI. In the remaining 11 (23%) with reported CoI, the median time spent displaying CoI was 1 second (interquartile range (IQR) 0.7–3.3). The median quality score for presentations was 7 (IQR 6–10).Conclusion This study demonstrates utility in considering aspects of CoI declarations at conferences to improve transparency. ER -