Hypothesis
Short instructions sent to authors alongside peer-review comments would reduce spin in the conclusion of a revised abstract.
What failed
Of 184 manuscripts randomized at BMJ Open, 108 revisions could be assessed; spin was present in 57% (31/54) of intervention manuscripts versus 63% (34/54) of controls, a 6% difference with a confidence interval from 24% lower to 13% higher, and the counts for each prespecified spin type were similar between arms.
Broken assumption
Authors will drop overstated conclusions when a journal simply asks them to.
Why
The authors note the confidence interval rules out a large effect and call for different interventions against spin.
From the published paper: Ghannad et al. Journal of Clinical Epidemiology, 2020. ↗CC BY