The Prevalence of Financial Conflict of Interest Disclosures by Endovascular Specialists on X (Twitter)
Thomas Webb1, Nathan Menard1, Hayden L Hofmann1
1Department of Radiology, Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California.
Purpose:
To evaluate conflicts of interest (COIs) among interventional radiologists and related specialties who mention specific devices or companies on the social media (SoMe) platform X, formerly Twitter.
Materials And Methods:
In total, 13,809 posts between October 7, 2021, and December 31, 2021, on X were evaluated. Posts by U.S. interventional radiologists and related specialties who mentioned a specific device or company were identified. A positive COI was defined as receiving a payment from the device manufacturer or company within 36 months prior to posting. The Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services Open Payment database was used to identify financial payments. The prevalence and value of COIs were assessed and compared between posts mentioning a device or company and a paired control group using descriptive statistics and chi-squared tests and independent t tests.
Results:
Eighty posts containing the mention of 100 specific devices or companies were evaluated. COIs were present in 53% (53/100). When mentioning a specific device or product, 40% interventional radiologists had a COI, compared with 62% neurosurgeons. Physicians who mentioned a specific device or company were 3.7 times more likely to have a positive COI relative to the paired control group (53/100 vs 14/100; P < .001). Of the 31 physicians with a COI, the median physician received $2,270. None of the positive COIs were disclosed.
Conclusions:
Physicians posting on SoMe about a specific device or company were more likely to have a financial COI than authors of posts not mentioning a specific device or company. No disclosure of any COI was present in the posts, limiting followers' ability to weigh potential bias.
