The Prevalence of Financial Conflict of Interest Disclosures by Endovascular Specialists on X (Twitter).

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Abstract

Evaluate conflicts of interest (COI) among interventional radiologists and related specialties who mention specific devices or companies on the social media (SoMe) platform X, formerly Twitter.13,809 posts between 10/7/2021 and 12/31/2021 on X were evaluated. Posts by US interventional radiologists and related specialties that 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 CMS 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.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, neurosurgeons 62%. 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<0.001). Of the 31 physicians with a COI, the median physician received $2,270. None of the positive COIs were disclosed.Physicians posting on SoMe about a specific device or company are more likely to have a financial COI than authors of posts not mentioning a specific device or company. No disclosure of any COIs were present in the posts, limiting followers ability to weigh potential bias.

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