The mysterious case of the disappearing pilot study: a review of publication bias in preliminary behavioral interventions presented at health behavior conferences | Pilot and Feasibility Studies | Full Text

Little is known about how publication bias may affect preliminary or feasibility studies in behavioral studies, but studies of publication bias indicate smaller, statistically nonsignificant studies are less likely to be published.

About half of all preliminary behavioral interventions go unpublished, and those appearing in the published literature are not functionally different than those that go unpublished.

Researchers conducting preliminary behavioral interventions should consider sharing unpublished findings on open-source platforms to maximize the fields’ ability to learn from their work."