Comments on "Reporting quality of randomized controlled trial abstracts in the seven highest-ranking anesthesiology journals".

Rohan Kumar Ochani, Asim Shaikh, Naser Yamani

Abstract readLetter

In one paragraph

Article in Trials, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.

0numbers the graph read from it

0cells of the map it votes in

1citing papers in PubMed

–field-weighted citation impact

1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

1 citing paper in PubMed.

Reporting checklists are used as measurement tools for assessing quality, even though they have not been validated for such use.Trials · 2019
Article

4 · The record

Corrections and comments

Commented on by
Reporting checklists are used as measurement tools for assessing quality, even though they have not been validated for such use.2019

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

3 authors.

Rohan Kumar OchaniDepartment of Internal Medicine, Dow University of Health Sciences, Baba-e-Urdu Road, Saddar, Karachi, Pakistan. rohanochani@gmail.com.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0075-2267

Asim ShaikhDepartment of Internal Medicine, Dow University of Health Sciences, Baba-e-Urdu Road, Saddar, Karachi, Pakistan.

Naser YamaniDepartment of Internal Medicine, Rush University Medical Center, Chicago, IL, USA.

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Randomized controlled trials are considered the gold standard in assessing treatment regimens, and since abstracts may be the only part of a paper that a physician reads, accurate reporting of data in abstracts is essential. The CONSORT checklist for abstracts was designed to standardize data reporting; however, for papers submitted to anesthesiology journals, the level of adherence to the CONSORT checklist for abstracts is unknown. Therefore, we commend Janackovic and Puljak for their efforts in determining the adherence of reports of trials in the highest-impact anesthesiology journals between 2014 and 2016. The results of their study are extremely important; however, we believe that that study had some methodological limitations, which we discuss in this manuscript.

Indexed as

Abstracting and IndexingAnesthesiologyPeriodicals as TopicRandomized Controlled Trials as TopicChecklistHumansResearch DesignCONSORT for abstractsrandomized controlled trialsReporting quality

Identifiers

PMID31744527

DOI10.1186/s13063-019-3857-7

PMCPMC6862748

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata

LicenceCC BY

Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.