Protocol of investigation into reporting quality of RCT abstracts on COVID-19 pursuant to CONSORT (CoCo study)—a review

BACKGROUND: In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic developed into a global crisis, the enormity and urgency of which accelerated research activities in the field. At the same time, manuscripts describing these research projects underwent fast-track peer review procedures and were published in freely accessible formats. Although full texts about COVID-19 are currently available for free, abstracts continue to play a key role since they provide essential information and possibly a decision basis for therapies. Abstracts are particularly important in case the full texts are not free, not all reports have been published in English and in emergency situations when there is less time for comprehensive analysis of all full texts. It is therefore necessary to ensure that abstracts—as publications in miniature format—contain comprehensive and transparent information. The CONSORT statement for abstracts (CONSORT-A) offers guidelines to authors how to include all necessary information in an abstract. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the quality of reporting in medical research had already been the object of debate and criticism. The current crisis makes comprehensive documentation all the more important. Abstracts of COVID-19 RCTs should therefore report the criteria listed in the CONSORT-A statement fully and verifiably. The objective of this study is to check the completeness of abstracts of all COVID-19 RTCs published to date. METHODS: Based on a literature search in PubMed, Embase and the Cochrane Library, all publications up to 29 October 2020 are identified and examined in terms of the subject matter (reported results from COVID-19 studies) and their study design (RTC). Subsequently, suitable publications are examined for completeness and quality of abstracts. The CONSORT checklist for RTC abstracts serves as a basis in this procedure. The primary endpoint of the study is the percentage of correctly implemented items of the CONSORT statement for abstracts. The frequency of correct reporting of each individual item is checked in a second step. DISCUSSION: The study is expected to contribute to evaluating the reporting quality on COVID-19 studies, and specifically the completeness of abstracts of RTCs. It may thus support the assessment of current research into COVID-19. TRIAL REGISTRATION: Registration was not required as the study investigated existing literature.