Hedges in Industry-sponsored medical research articles

Abstract

Apart from fact and observable phenomena, uncertainty and speculation can also be communicated in research articles. To do so, scientists resort to tentative conclusions, speculations, and hedging. We focused on hedges since it was demonstrated that they are used to avoid taking direct responsibility for the content or to convince the community of the accuracy of the claims. Previous studies have demonstrated that the language used to report the findings in the biomedical research community varies according to the degree of involvement from industry sponsors. The research aim of the present study was to establish the difference in frequency of hedges in industrysponsored medical research articles in accordance with the drug being studied (Biological /nonbiological drugs) and the distribution regarding the article sections. Therefore, we conducted a correlational quantitative univariate research to test the hypothesis posed- the higher the price of the drug, the fewer the number of hedges. After representing the obtained data graphically, we performed a Chi-Square Test of Independence to the findings regarding categories of hedges and type of study and hedging in research article sections. We found that there was no difference of frequency regarding the article sections (.231618, not significant at p < .05.) but there was a difference regarding categories of hedges and the type of study ( .01839 significant at p < .05.). The obtained data allow us to claim that there is a relation between the categories of hedge used and the nature or type of research article.