Evidence map›Paper›PMID 40021657›Full record

ArticleScientific data2025

SPIRIT-CONSORT-TM: a corpus for assessing transparency of clinical trial protocol and results publications.

Lan Jiang, Colby J Vorland, Xiangji Ying, Andrew W Brown, Joe D Menke, Gibong Hong, Mengfei Lan, Evan Mayo-Wilson, Halil Kilicoglu

Abstract readDataset
In one paragraph

Article in Scientific data, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
4citing 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

4 citing papers in PubMed.

  1. Article
  2. Article
  3. Article
  4. Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

9 authors.

Lan Jiang *University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, School of Information Sciences, Champaign, IL, 61820, USA. lanj3@illinois.edu.ORCID http://orcid.org/0009-0004-2764-0697
Colby J Vorland *Indiana University, School of Public Health, Bloomington, IN, 47405, USA.
Xiangji Ying *University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, Gillings School of Global Public Health, Chapel Hill, NC, 27599, USA.
Andrew W BrownUniversity of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Little Rock, AR, 72205, USA.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1758-8205
Joe D MenkeUniversity of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, School of Information Sciences, Champaign, IL, 61820, USA.
Gibong HongUniversity of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, School of Information Sciences, Champaign, IL, 61820, USA.
Mengfei LanUniversity of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, School of Information Sciences, Champaign, IL, 61820, USA.
Evan Mayo-WilsonUniversity of North Carolina Chapel Hill, Gillings School of Global Public Health, Chapel Hill, NC, 27599, USA.
Halil KilicogluUniversity of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, School of Information Sciences, Champaign, IL, 61820, USA. halil@illinois.edu.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3987-9393

Funding

Computational Methods, Resources, and Tools to Assess Transparency and Rigor of Randomized Clinical TrialsR01LM014079 · NLM · UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN · PI KILICOGLU, HALIL, MAYO-WILSON, EVAN · 2022 to 2025
$1.3M
NLM NIH HHS R01 LM014079U.S. Department of Health & Human Services | NIH | U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM) R01LM014079
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) can produce valid estimates of the benefits and harms of therapeutic interventions. However, incomplete reporting can undermine the validity of their conclusions. Reporting guidelines, such as SPIRIT for protocols and CONSORT for results, have been developed to improve transparency in RCT publications. In this study, we report a corpus of 200 RCT publications, named SPIRIT-CONSORT-TM, annotated for transparency. We used a comprehensive data model that includes 83 items from SPIRIT and CONSORT checklists for annotation. Inter-annotator agreement was calculated for 30 pairs. The dataset includes 26,613 sentences annotated with checklist items and 4,231 terms. We also trained natural language processing (NLP) models that automatically identify these items in publications. The sentence classification model achieved 0.742 micro-F1 score (0.865 at the article level). The term extraction model yielded 0.545 and 0.663 micro-F1 score in strict and lenient evaluation, respectively. The corpus serves as a benchmark to train models that assist stakeholders of clinical research in maintaining high reporting standards and synthesizing information on study rigor and conduct.

Indexed as

Clinical Trial Protocols as TopicPublicationsRandomized Controlled Trials as TopicChecklistNatural Language Processing

Identifiers

PMID40021657
PMCPMC11871027

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.