The terms publication bias and selective reporting bias refers to the differential choice to publish studies or report particular results depending on the nature or directionality of findings [1]. There are several forms of such biases in the literature [2], including (1) study publication bias, where studies are less likely to be published when they reach non-statistically significant findings; (2) selective outcome reporting bias, where multiple outcomes are evaluated in a study and outcomes found to be non-significant are less likely to be published than statistically significant ones; and (3) selective analysis reporting bias, where certain data are analyzed using different analytical options and publication favors the more impressive, statistically significant variants of the results (Box 1).
