ArticleCMAJ open
Completeness of reporting for COVID-19 case reports, January to April 2020: a meta-epidemiologic study.
Article in CMAJ open. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 8 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled 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.
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.
Who cites it
8 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- CARE-radiology statement explanation and elaboration: reporting guideline for radiological case reports.BMJ evidence-based medicine · 2024Guideline
- The quality of reporting in case reports of permanent neonatal diabetes mellitus: a cross-sectional study.BMC medical research methodology · 2024Article
- Editorial: The Increasing Relevance of Case Reports in Medical Education and Clinical Practice - and How to Write Them.The American journal of case reports · 2023Article
- Analysis of the Reporting Requirements of Clinical Case Reports Dedicated Journals: Towards Updating the CARE Guideline.Advanced biomedical research · 2023Article
- Review
- NeuroCOVID-19: a critical review.Arquivos de neuro-psiquiatria · 2022Review
- Adolescents with Vulvar Ulcers: COVID-19 disease, COVID-19 Vaccines, and the Value of Case Reports.Journal of pediatric and adolescent gynecology · 2022Article
- COVID-19 associated with cryptococcosis: a scoping review.Therapeutic advances in infectious diseaseArticle
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
10 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundThe quality of case reports, which are often the first reported evidence for a disease, may be negatively affected by a rush to publication early in a pandemic. We aimed to determine the completeness of reporting (COR) for case reports published on coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).
methodsWe conducted a systematic search of the PubMed database for all single-patient case reports of confirmed COVID-19 published from Jan. 1 to Apr. 24, 2020. All included case reports were assessed for adherence to the CARE (Case Report) 31-item checklist, which was used to create a composite COR score. The primary outcome was the mean COR score assessed by 2 independent raters. Secondary outcomes included whether there was a change in overall COR score with certain publication factors (e.g., publication date) and whether there was a linear relation between COR and citation count and between COR scores and social media attention.
resultsOur search identified 196 studies that were published in 114 unique journals. We found that the overall mean COR score was 54.4%. No one case report included all of the 31 CARE checklist items. There was no significant correlation between COR with either citation count or social media attention.
interpretationWe found that the overall COR for case reports on COVID-19 was poor. We suggest that journals adopt common case-reporting standards to improve reporting quality.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
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.