Reporting quality of trial abstracts—improved yet suboptimal: A systematic review and meta‐analysis

Chhapola, Viswas; Tiwari, Soumya; Brar, Rekha; Kanwal, Sandeep Kumar

doi:10.1111/jebm.12294

Cited by 21 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 31 publications

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“…This finding is similar to a previous research that investigated the abstract reporting of randomized controlled trials [23]. In that review, Chhapola et al used the Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials (CONSORT) for Abstract extension to assess the abstract reporting and their research showed insignificant change before and after the publication of the CONSORT abstract guideline [23].…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 88%

Assessment of the abstract reporting of systematic reviews of dose-response meta-analysis: a literature survey

Jia

Cheng

et al. 2019

BMC Med Res Methodol

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Background There is an increasing number of published systematic reviews (SR) of dose-response meta-analyses (DRMAs) over the past decades. However, the quality of abstract reporting of these SR-DRMAs remains to be understood. We conducted a literature survey to investigate the abstract reporting of SR-DRMAs. Methods Medline, Embase, and Wiley online Library were searched for eligible SR-DRMAs. The reporting quality of SR-DRMAs was assessed by the modified PRISMA-for-Abstract checklist (14 items). We summarized the adherence rate of each item and categorized them as well complied (adhered by 80% or above), moderately complied (50 to 79%), and poorly complied (less than 50%). We used total score to reflect the abstract quality and regression analysis was employed to explore the potential influence factors for it. Results We included 529 SR-DRMAs. Eight of 14 items were moderately (3 items) or poorly complied (5 items) while only 6 were well complied by these SR-DRMAs. Most of the SR-DRMAs failed to describe the methods for risk of bias assessment (30.2, 95% CI: 26.4, 34.4%) and the results of bias assessment (48.8, 95% CI: 44.4, 53.1%). Few SR-DRMAs reported the funding (2.3, 95% CI: 1.2, 3.9%) and registration (0.6, 95% CI: 0.1, 1.6%) information in the abstract. Multivariable regression analysis suggested word number of abstracts [> 250 vs. ≤ 250 (estimated ß = 0.31; 95% CI: 0.02, 0.61; P = 0.039)] was positively associated with the abstract reporting quality. Conclusion The abstract reporting of SR-DRMAs is suboptimal, substantial effort is needed to improve the reporting. More word number may benefit for the abstract reporting. Given that reporting of abstract largely depends on the reporting and conduct of the SR-DRMA, review authors should also focus on the completeness of SR-DRMA itself. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1186/s12874-019-0798-5) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 88%

Assessment of the abstract reporting of systematic reviews of dose-response meta-analysis: a literature survey

Jia

Cheng

et al. 2019

BMC Med Res Methodol

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“…The CONSORT statement for abstracts provides authors with guidance on the necessary details and clarity required for good reporting. It is intended to improve the reporting quality of abstracts, and recently, has been used as a tool to evaluate the reporting quality of abstracts 55 , 56 , 57 , 58 , 59 . Our results show that the overall reporting quality of the abstracts of these COVID-19 RCTs is far from satisfactory, with adherence of reports to the CONSORT items ranging from 2.5% to 97.5%.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Abstracts for reports of randomized trials of COVID-19 interventions had low quality and high spin

Wang

Chen

Wang

et al. 2021

Journal of Clinical Epidemiology

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Objectives : To assess the reporting quality of abstracts for published randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of interventions for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), including the use of spin strategies and the level of spin for RCTs with statistically non-significant primary outcomes, and to explore potential predictors for reporting quality and the severity of spin. Study Design and Setting : PubMed was searched to find RCTs that tested interventions for COVID-19, and the reporting quality and spin in the abstracts were assessed. Linear regression analyses were used to identify potential predictors. Results : Forty RCT abstracts were included in our assessment of reporting quality, and a higher word count in the abstract was significantly correlated with higher reporting scores (95% CI 0.044 to 0.658, P=0.026). Multiple spin strategies were identified. Our multivariate analyses showed that geographical origin was associated with severity of spin, with research from non-Asian regions containing fewer spin strategies (95% CI -0.760 to -0.099, P=0.013). Conclusions : The reporting quality of abstracts of RCTs of interventions for COVID-19 is far from satisfactory. A relatively high proportion of the abstracts contained spin, and the findings reported in the results and conclusion sections of these abstracts need to be interpreted with caution.

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“…These guidelines also recommended the use of structured format in the RCT abstracts. It has been recently reported that the quality of RCT abstracts remains suboptimal ( 4 ). Furthermore, the quality of RCT abstracts in leading dentistry journals has been documented to be suboptimal ( 5 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Quality assessment of randomized controlled trial abstracts on drug therapy of periodontal disease from the abstracts published in dental Science Citation Indexed journals in the last ten years

Xie¹,

Qin²,

Gu³

et al. 2020

Med Oral

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Background Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) provide the highest level of evidence and are likely to influence clinical decision-making. This study evaluated the reporting quality of RCT abstracts on drug therapy of periodontal disease and assessed the associated factors. Material and Methods The Pubmed database was searched for periodontal RCTs published in Science Citation Indexed (SCI) dental journals from 2010/01/01 to 2019/07/17. Information was extracted from the abstracts according to a modified Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials (CONSORT) guideline checklist. The data was analyzed using descriptive statistical analysis and the statistical associations were examined using the linear regression analysis ( P <0.05). Results This study retrieved 1715 articles and 249 of them were finally included. The average overall CONSORT score was 15.6 ± 3.4, which represented 40.9% (±0.6) of CONSORT criteria filling. The reporting rate of some items (trial design, numbers analyzed, confidence intervals, intention-to-treat analysis or per-protocol analysis, harms, registration) was less than 30%. The adequate reporting rate of some items (participants, randomization, numbers analyzed, confidence intervals, intention-to-treat analysis or per protocol analysis) was no more than 4%. None of the abstracts reported funding. According to the multivariable linear regression results, number of authors ( P =0.030), word count ( P <0.001), continent ( P =0.003), structured format ( P <0.001), type of periodontal disease ( P <0.001) and international collaboration ( P =0.023) have a significant association with reporting quality. Conclusions The quality of RCT abstracts on drug therapy of periodontal disease in SCI dental journals remained suboptimal. More efforts should be made to improve RCT abstracts reporting quality. Key words: Abstracts, RCT, drug therapy, periodontal disease, CONSORT, reporting quality assessment.

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Reporting quality of trial abstracts—improved yet suboptimal: A systematic review and meta‐analysis

Cited by 21 publications

References 31 publications

Assessment of the abstract reporting of systematic reviews of dose-response meta-analysis: a literature survey

Assessment of the abstract reporting of systematic reviews of dose-response meta-analysis: a literature survey

Abstracts for reports of randomized trials of COVID-19 interventions had low quality and high spin

Quality assessment of randomized controlled trial abstracts on drug therapy of periodontal disease from the abstracts published in dental Science Citation Indexed journals in the last ten years

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