Quality of COVID-19 research in preprints: a meta-epidemiological study protocol v1

Abstract

Background: No studies have comprehensively assessed the quality of studies related to COVID-19 in preprints [11]. Hence, we will conduct a meta-epidemiological study based on the following research question: Are the quality of COVID-19 RCT and SR articles in medRxiv lower than those indexed in PubMed? Methods: We will conduct a meta-epidemiological cross-sectional study. We will include randomized controlled trial articles and systematic review articles indexed in PubMed or MedRxiv from 1 st January to 15 th June 2020. We will include articles of COVID-19 patients or healthcare workers engaged in the care of COVID-19 patients. We will exclude study protocols. We will evaluate the characteristics of included studies, methodological quality, number of mentions on social networking sites (SNS), and citations. We will use chi-squared test, logistic regression analysis, and linear regression analysis as appropriate. Two-tailed p values will be considered statistically significant if less than 0.05. Ethical consideration: We will only use openly available data. There is no need to make ethical considerations. ATTACHMENTS qor_preprints_protocol061 7v2.pdf

COVID-19 randomized controlled trials in medRxiv and PubMed

“…This is a meta-epidemiological investigation. We published the protocol prior to conducting this study [1]. S1 Appendix is the reporting checklist [2].…”

The methodological quality of COVID-19 systematic reviews is low, except for Cochrane reviews: a meta-epidemiological study

“…We abode by the reporting guideline of meta-epidemiological study where applicable (S1 Table) [9]. We published the protocol prior to conducting this study [10].…”

The Methodological Quality Score of COVID-19 Systematic Reviews is Low, Except for Cochrane Reviews: A Meta-epidemiological Study

“…We used the reporting guideline of meta-epidemiological study where applicable (Table 1) [9]. We published the protocol prior to the conduct of this study [10]. We published the results of the review on the randomized controlled trials separately [11].…”