Reporting quality for abstracts of randomised trials on child and adolescent depression prevention: a meta-epidemiological study on adherence to CONSORT for abstracts

Reporting of Participant Race and Ethnicity in Cerebrovascular Randomized Controlled Trials

BACKGROUND

Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) provide information on appropriate management protocols in patients with cerebrovascular diseases. Despite growing evidence of race and ethnicity being independent predictors of outcomes, recent literature has drawn attention to inadequate reporting of these demographic profiles across RCTs. To our knowledge, the adherence to reporting race and/or ethnicity in cerebrovascular RCTs remains undescribed. Our study describes trends in the reporting of race and/or ethnicity across cerebrovascular RCTs.

METHODS

Web of Science was searched to identify the top 100-cited cerebrovascular RCTs. Additional articles were retrieved from guidelines issued by the American Heart Association for the management of ischemic stroke, intracerebral hemorrhage, and aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage. Univariate and multivariate analyses were performed to assess for factors influencing reporting of race/ethnicity.

RESULTS

Sixty-five percent of cerebrovascular RCTs lacked reporting of participant race and/or ethnicity. Multivariate regression revealed that studies from North America had a 14.74- fold higher odds (95% CI: 4.574-47.519) of reporting race/ethnicity. Impact factor of the journal was associated with 1.007-fold odds of reporting race/ethnicity (95% CI: 1.000-1.013). Reporting of race and/or ethnicity did not increase with time, or vary according to the number of participating centers, median number of study participants, source of funding, or category of RCT. Among RCTs that reported race, Blacks and Asians were underrepresented compared to Whites.

CONCLUSIONS

Sixty-five percent of prominent cerebrovascular RCTs lack adequate reporting of participant race/ethnicity. Reasons for inadequate reporting of these variables remain unclear and warrant additional investigation.

Evaluation of Reporting Quality of Glaucoma Randomized Controlled Trial Abstracts: Current Status and Future Perspectives

The aim of this study was to explore adherence to the Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials (CONSORT) reporting standards in abstracts of randomized controlled trials on glaucoma. A cross-sectional observational study was conducted on the aforementioned abstracts, indexed in MEDLINE/PubMed between the years 2017 and 2021. In total, 302 abstracts met the inclusion criteria and were further analyzed. The median score of CONSORT-A items was 8 (interquartile range, 7-10) out of 17 (47.0%). Most analyzed studies were conducted in a single center (80.5%) and the abstracts were predominantly structured (95.0%). Only 20.5% of the abstracts adequately described the trial design, while randomization and funding were described by 6.0% of the abstracts. Higher overall scores were associated with structured abstracts, a multicenter setting, statistically significant results, funding by industry, a higher number of participants, and having been published in journals with impact factors above four (p < 0.001, respectively). The results of this study indicate a suboptimal adherence to CONSORT-A reporting standards, especially in particular items such as randomization and funding. Since these factors could contribute to the overall quality of the trials and further translation of trial results into clinical practice, an improvement in glaucoma research reporting transparency is needed.