• Ashley N Plumb, Joseph B Lesnak, Giovanni Berardi, Kazuhiro Hayashi, Adam J Janowski, Angela F Smith, Dana Bailey, Cassie Kerkman, Zoe Kienenberger, Ben Martin, Ethan Patterson, Hannah Van Roekel, VanceCarol G TCGT, and Kathleen A Sluka.
• Department of Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation Science, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, United States.
• Pain. 2023 Aug 1; 164 (8): 177517821775-1782.

AbstractRigorous experimental design with transparent reporting in biomedical science reduces risk of bias and allows for scientists to judge the quality of the research. Basic factors of rigor such as blinding, randomization, power analysis, and inclusion of both sexes impact the reproducibility by reducing experimental bias. We designed a systematic study to analyze basic factors of rigor, inclusion of sex, and whether data were analyzed or disaggregated by sex over the past 10 years in the journal PAIN . Studies that included humans reported randomization in 81%, blinding in 48%, and the use of a power analysis calculation in 27% over the past 10 years. Studies that included mice reported randomization in 35%, blinding in 70%, and the use of a power analysis in 9%. Studies that included rats reported randomization in 38%, blinding in 63%, and the use of power analysis in 12%. This study also found that human studies consistently included both sexes over the past decade, but less than 20% of data were disaggregated or analyzed for sex differences. Although mouse and rat studies predominately used males only, there has been a slight increase in inclusion of both sexes over the past few years. Justification for single-sex studies was below 50% in both human and rodent data. In both human and animal studies, transparency in reporting of experimental design and inclusion of both sexes should be considered standard practice and will result in improved quality and reproducibility of published research.Copyright © 2023 International Association for the Study of Pain.

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