Background: Many healthcare professionals rely on randomized controlled
trials (RCTs) abstracts to decide whether to retrieve the full text
manuscript. Sometimes, healthcare decisions are made by clinicians based
on abstract results, especially in places where the abstract of a randomized
trial may be all that health professionals have easy access to. To date, little
is known about to what extent abstracts published in major general
medical journals report methodological quality domains, treatment effects
and the clinical importance of findings. Objectives: To evaluate the quality
of reporting of abstracts describing RCTs published in four major general
medical journals. Methods: Systematic survey of published RCTs abstracts,
with two reviewers independently extracting data. We searched MEDILINE
and identified 227 RCTs abstracts published in the New England Journal of
Medicine, JAMA, BMJ, and The Lancet in the year 2006. Results: Most
abstracts identified the study as a randomized trial (98.7%), reported the
objectives (92.5%), described the population (90.3%), detailed the
intervention (81.5%), and defined the primary outcome (71.3%).
Methodological quality was poorly reported: 1 (0.4%) described allocation
concealment, 21 (9.3%) clearly specified blinding, 51 (22.5%) described
intention-to-treat analysis, and 32 (14.1%) outlined losses to follow-up.
The majority of the abstracts reported the effect size and the confidence
intervals (62.3%), but just half of them reported side effects or harms.
Conclusions: The quality of reporting of RCTs abstracts published in main
general medical journals is sub-optimal. Space limitations notwithstanding,
with the recent recommendations from the CONSORT for Abstracts, is
expected that the transparency of abstract reporting can and should
improve.