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Abstract
Background: Transparent and accurate conference abstracts of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) are important, especially when they are used to make health-care decisions. However, the reporting quality of conference abstracts related to RCTs in renal transplantation is unknown.
Objectives: To assess the reporting quality of conference abstracts of RCTs in renal transplantation and to identify factors associated with high quality.\HI{ Methods:} Web of science was searched to identify RCTs of renal transplantation and limited to conference proceedings. Their qualities were evaluated with a modified version of CONSORT for reporting randomized trials in Journal and conference abstracts. The percentage of trials that scored 'yes' on each quality item and the 95% confidence interval (CI) was calculated. Differences of the reporting quality of different items (region, center, published year) were tested using Chi-square analysis expressed as odds ratio (OR) with 95% CI with Mantel-Haenszel method.Results: We included 112 RCTs. More than half of conference abstracts reported specific objective (86%, 95% CI 91% to 77%), recruitment (55%, 95% CI 64% to 46%), number of participants randomized (63%, 95% CI 71% 53%), primary outcome (51%, 95% CI 60% to 42%), and general interpretation of the results (90%, 95% CI 94% to 83%). All of the abstracts reported the contact details for the corresponding author. Only 2% of the abstracts provided details of blinding. No abstract explained the methods of random sequence generation, allocation concealment, source of funding or trial registration. Compared to abstracts not reporting center, the quality of single-center (OR 1.93, 95% CI 1.25 to 2.97) and multi-center (OR 1.84, 95% CI 1.44 2.35) was significantly higher. The reporting quality of European is significant lower than North American (OR 0.68, 95% CI 0.50 to 0.93). But statistically significant differences were not found between publication before and after 2008.
Conclusions: The reporting quality of conference abstracts of RCTs in renal transplantation was suboptimal, especially for methodological items where improvements are needed.
Objectives: To assess the reporting quality of conference abstracts of RCTs in renal transplantation and to identify factors associated with high quality.\HI{ Methods:} Web of science was searched to identify RCTs of renal transplantation and limited to conference proceedings. Their qualities were evaluated with a modified version of CONSORT for reporting randomized trials in Journal and conference abstracts. The percentage of trials that scored 'yes' on each quality item and the 95% confidence interval (CI) was calculated. Differences of the reporting quality of different items (region, center, published year) were tested using Chi-square analysis expressed as odds ratio (OR) with 95% CI with Mantel-Haenszel method.Results: We included 112 RCTs. More than half of conference abstracts reported specific objective (86%, 95% CI 91% to 77%), recruitment (55%, 95% CI 64% to 46%), number of participants randomized (63%, 95% CI 71% 53%), primary outcome (51%, 95% CI 60% to 42%), and general interpretation of the results (90%, 95% CI 94% to 83%). All of the abstracts reported the contact details for the corresponding author. Only 2% of the abstracts provided details of blinding. No abstract explained the methods of random sequence generation, allocation concealment, source of funding or trial registration. Compared to abstracts not reporting center, the quality of single-center (OR 1.93, 95% CI 1.25 to 2.97) and multi-center (OR 1.84, 95% CI 1.44 2.35) was significantly higher. The reporting quality of European is significant lower than North American (OR 0.68, 95% CI 0.50 to 0.93). But statistically significant differences were not found between publication before and after 2008.
Conclusions: The reporting quality of conference abstracts of RCTs in renal transplantation was suboptimal, especially for methodological items where improvements are needed.