Quality problems of clinical trials in China: evidence from quality related studies

BACKGROUND: Recently, the quality of clinical trials conducted in China has made considerable progress. However, clinical trials conducted in China still fall below the global average standard. The aim of this systematic review was to assess studies that investigated the quality of clinical trials conducted in China, summarize the issues, and provide suggestions for conducting high-quality clinical trials in China. METHODS: We comprehensively searched studies that investigated the quality of clinical trials conducted in China in the following databases from inception to December 1, 2021: National Knowledge Infrastructure, the Chinese Science and Technology Periodical Database, WanFang Data, China Biology Medicine, PubMed, and Embase. We then analyzed the issues in clinical trial registration, ethics review, implementation, and reporting. SPSS 25.0 software was used for data analysis. The data synthesis was conducted using summary statistics and a narrative format. RESULTS: A total of 90 studies were analyzed, there were 50 studies with 0–5 citation counts (55.56%), 18 studies with 5–10 citation counts (20%), 9 studies with 10–15 citation counts (10%), and 13 studies with more than 15 citation counts (14.44%). Eight (8.89%) studies were conducted by a supervision department, 38 (42.22%) by organizations with GCP qualification, and 44 (48.89%) by third parties. Additionally, there were some problems in the ethical review process of clinical trials, clinical trial registration process, clinical trial implementation process, and clinical trial reporting process. CONCLUSIONS: The current study shows that the quality problems of clinical trials in China still exist. The reported problems are related to the process of clinical trials, including ethical review, registration, implementation, reporting. Due to the limited quantity and quality of included studies, the conclusions of this study need to be verified by high-quality studies. REVIEW REGISTRATION: Not registerated in PROSPERO. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s13063-022-06281-1.