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Does use of the CONSORT Statement impact the completeness of reporting of randomised controlled trials published in medical journals? A Cochrane review(a)

BACKGROUND: The Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials (CONSORT) Statement is intended to facilitate better reporting of randomised clinical trials (RCTs). A systematic review recently published in the Cochrane Library assesses whether journal endorsement of CONSORT impacts the completeness of r...

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Autores principales: Turner, Lucy, Shamseer, Larissa, Altman, Douglas G, Schulz, Kenneth F, Moher, David
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2012
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3564748/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23194585
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/2046-4053-1-60
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author Turner, Lucy
Shamseer, Larissa
Altman, Douglas G
Schulz, Kenneth F
Moher, David
author_facet Turner, Lucy
Shamseer, Larissa
Altman, Douglas G
Schulz, Kenneth F
Moher, David
author_sort Turner, Lucy
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: The Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials (CONSORT) Statement is intended to facilitate better reporting of randomised clinical trials (RCTs). A systematic review recently published in the Cochrane Library assesses whether journal endorsement of CONSORT impacts the completeness of reporting of RCTs; those findings are summarised here. METHODS: Evaluations assessing the completeness of reporting of RCTs based on any of 27 outcomes formulated based on the 1996 or 2001 CONSORT checklists were included; two primary comparisons were evaluated. The 27 outcomes were: the 22 items of the 2001 CONSORT checklist, four sub-items describing blinding and a ‘total summary score’ of aggregate items, as reported. Relative risks (RR) and 99% confidence intervals were calculated to determine effect estimates for each outcome across evaluations. RESULTS: Fifty-three reports describing 50 evaluations of 16,604 RCTs were assessed for adherence to at least one of 27 outcomes. Sixty-nine of 81 meta-analyses show relative benefit from CONSORT endorsement on completeness of reporting. Between endorsing and non-endorsing journals, 25 outcomes are improved with CONSORT endorsement, five of these significantly (α = 0.01). The number of evaluations per meta-analysis was often low with substantial heterogeneity; validity was assessed as low or unclear for many evaluations. CONCLUSIONS: The results of this review suggest that journal endorsement of CONSORT may benefit the completeness of reporting of RCTs they publish. No evidence suggests that endorsement hinders the completeness of RCT reporting. However, despite relative improvements when CONSORT is endorsed by journals, the completeness of reporting of trials remains sub-optimal. Journals are not sending a clear message about endorsement to authors submitting manuscripts for publication. As such, fidelity of endorsement as an ‘intervention’ has been weak to date. Journals need to take further action regarding their endorsement and implementation of CONSORT to facilitate accurate, transparent and complete reporting of trials.
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spelling pubmed-35647482013-02-08 Does use of the CONSORT Statement impact the completeness of reporting of randomised controlled trials published in medical journals? A Cochrane review(a) Turner, Lucy Shamseer, Larissa Altman, Douglas G Schulz, Kenneth F Moher, David Syst Rev Research BACKGROUND: The Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials (CONSORT) Statement is intended to facilitate better reporting of randomised clinical trials (RCTs). A systematic review recently published in the Cochrane Library assesses whether journal endorsement of CONSORT impacts the completeness of reporting of RCTs; those findings are summarised here. METHODS: Evaluations assessing the completeness of reporting of RCTs based on any of 27 outcomes formulated based on the 1996 or 2001 CONSORT checklists were included; two primary comparisons were evaluated. The 27 outcomes were: the 22 items of the 2001 CONSORT checklist, four sub-items describing blinding and a ‘total summary score’ of aggregate items, as reported. Relative risks (RR) and 99% confidence intervals were calculated to determine effect estimates for each outcome across evaluations. RESULTS: Fifty-three reports describing 50 evaluations of 16,604 RCTs were assessed for adherence to at least one of 27 outcomes. Sixty-nine of 81 meta-analyses show relative benefit from CONSORT endorsement on completeness of reporting. Between endorsing and non-endorsing journals, 25 outcomes are improved with CONSORT endorsement, five of these significantly (α = 0.01). The number of evaluations per meta-analysis was often low with substantial heterogeneity; validity was assessed as low or unclear for many evaluations. CONCLUSIONS: The results of this review suggest that journal endorsement of CONSORT may benefit the completeness of reporting of RCTs they publish. No evidence suggests that endorsement hinders the completeness of RCT reporting. However, despite relative improvements when CONSORT is endorsed by journals, the completeness of reporting of trials remains sub-optimal. Journals are not sending a clear message about endorsement to authors submitting manuscripts for publication. As such, fidelity of endorsement as an ‘intervention’ has been weak to date. Journals need to take further action regarding their endorsement and implementation of CONSORT to facilitate accurate, transparent and complete reporting of trials. BioMed Central 2012-11-29 /pmc/articles/PMC3564748/ /pubmed/23194585 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/2046-4053-1-60 Text en Copyright ©2012 Turner et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Research
Turner, Lucy
Shamseer, Larissa
Altman, Douglas G
Schulz, Kenneth F
Moher, David
Does use of the CONSORT Statement impact the completeness of reporting of randomised controlled trials published in medical journals? A Cochrane review(a)
title Does use of the CONSORT Statement impact the completeness of reporting of randomised controlled trials published in medical journals? A Cochrane review(a)
title_full Does use of the CONSORT Statement impact the completeness of reporting of randomised controlled trials published in medical journals? A Cochrane review(a)
title_fullStr Does use of the CONSORT Statement impact the completeness of reporting of randomised controlled trials published in medical journals? A Cochrane review(a)
title_full_unstemmed Does use of the CONSORT Statement impact the completeness of reporting of randomised controlled trials published in medical journals? A Cochrane review(a)
title_short Does use of the CONSORT Statement impact the completeness of reporting of randomised controlled trials published in medical journals? A Cochrane review(a)
title_sort does use of the consort statement impact the completeness of reporting of randomised controlled trials published in medical journals? a cochrane review(a)
topic Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3564748/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23194585
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/2046-4053-1-60
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