Reporting quality and spin in abstracts of randomized clinical trials of periodontal therapy and cardiovascular disease outcomes

Autor: John C. Gunsolley, Khadijeh Al-Abedalla, Helen Swede, Julie Wagner, Effie Ioannidou, Murad Shaqman
Rok vydání: 2019
Předmět:
medicine.medical_specialty
Blinding
Randomization
Drug Research and Development
Science
Oral Medicine
MEDLINE
Dental and Oral Procedures
Surgical and Invasive Medical Procedures
Cardiovascular Medicine
Research and Analysis Methods
Biochemistry
law.invention
03 medical and health sciences
0302 clinical medicine
Cohen's kappa
Randomized controlled trial
Oral Diseases
law
Medicine and Health Sciences
Medicine
Clinical Trials
030212 general & internal medicine
Periodontitis
Periodontal Diseases
Pharmacology
Multidisciplinary
business.industry
Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials
Biology and Life Sciences
030206 dentistry
Research Assessment
Lipids
Randomized Controlled Trials
Cholesterol
Data extraction
Cardiovascular Diseases
Bibliometrics
Cohort
Citation Analysis
Physical therapy
Clinical Trial Reporting
Clinical Medicine
business
Research Article
Zdroj: PLoS ONE
PLoS ONE, Vol 15, Iss 4, p e0230843 (2020)
ISSN: 1932-6203
Popis: ObjectivePoor reporting in randomized clinical trial (RCT) abstracts reduces quality and misinforms readers. Spin, a biased presentation of findings, could frequently mislead clinicians to accept a clinical intervention despite non-significant primary outcome. Therefore, good reporting practices and absence of spin enhances research quality. We aim to assess the reporting quality and spin in abstracts of RCTs evaluating the effect of periodontal therapy on cardiovascular (CVD) outcomes.MethodsPubMed, Scopus, the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL), and 17 trial registration platforms were searched. Cohort, non-randomized, non-English studies, and pediatric studies were excluded. RCT abstracts were reviewed by 2 authors using the CONSORT for abstracts and spin checklists for data extraction. Cohen's Kappa statistic was used to assess inter-rater agreement. Data on the selected RCT publication metrics were collected. Descriptive analysis was performed with non-parametric methods. Correlation analysis between quality, spin and bibliometric parameters was conducted.Results24 RCTs were selected for CONSORT analysis and 14 fulfilled the criteria for spin analysis. Several important RCT elements per CONSORT were neglected in the abstract including description of the study population (100%), explicitly stated primary outcome (87%), methods of randomization and blinding (100%), trial registration (87%). No RCT examined true outcomes (CVD events). A significant fraction of the abstracts appeared with at least one form of spin in the results and conclusions (86%) and claimed some treatment benefit in spite of non-significant primary outcome (64%). High-quality reporting had a significant positive correlation with reporting of trial registration (p = 0.04) and funding (p = 0.009). Spinning showed marginal negative correlation with reporting quality (p = 0.059).ConclusionPoor adherence to the CONSORT guidelines and high levels of data spin were found in abstracts of RCTs exploring the effects of periodontal therapy on CVD outcomes. Our findings indicate that journal editors and reviewers should consider strict adherence to proper reporting guidelines to improve reporting quality and reduce waste.
Databáze: OpenAIRE