Reporting quality of abstracts from randomised controlled trials published in leading critical care nursing journals: a methodological quality review

Abstract

Objectives: To evaluate the methodological quality of randomised controlled trial (RCT) abstracts in leading critical care nursing journals against the Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials-Abstracts (CONSORT-A) checklist and to identify variables related with abstract reporting quality.

Design: Descriptive methodological quality review.

Data source: We searched the PubMed database and the websites of each included journal.

Eligibility criteria: We included RCT abstracts published between 2011 and 2021 in the first 11 Scopus-ranking (2021) critical care nursing journals that reported the results of RCTs in English that referred to the care of adult patients with acute/critical illness or their relatives and/or caregivers and conducted in ICUs.

Data extraction and synthesis: Two independent investigators extracted the data using a prespecified 17-item checklist directly derived from CONSORT-A. For the primary outcome, each item was evaluated whether it was adequately reported or not and descriptive statistics were reported. An overall score was calculated by summing the results of all items and multivariate linear regression was conducted to detect potential predictors.

Results: Seventy-eight RCT abstracts were included in this review. The items with the highest CONSORT-A adherence were authors, objective, conclusion, participants, interventions and outcome. The randomisation item had the lowest CONSORT-A adherence, followed by trial registration, funding source, harms or side effects, recruitment, blinding and outcome results. The average CONSORT-A score was 8.5±1.5 points (of the maximum 17.5 points). Multivariate analysis indicated that the categorised word score and publication date were positively associated with the overall CONSORT-A score, while the first author's country being in Asia was negatively associated with the overall CONSORT-A score.

Conclusions: The 78 RCT abstracts showed poor overall adherence to CONSORT-A. The results indicate that the methodological reporting quality of RCT abstracts in critical care nursing journals requires improvement to facilitate assessment of the applicability and relevance of the results reported.

Keywords: Adult intensive & critical care; EPIDEMIOLOGY; STATISTICS & RESEARCH METHODS.