Article type
Year
Abstract
Background: Trial registration is known to improve research transparency and will ultimately strengthen the validity and value of the scientific evidence base. More and more biomedical journals support clinical trial registration policies after the requirement for registration was introduced by several medical journals, led by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). However, the attention paid to trial registration varies among countries, particularly in the Asia-Pacific Region.
Objectives: To evaluate the attention paid to trial registration in selected countries in the Asia-Pacific Region in the last three years.
Methods: The published randomized controlled trials (RCTs) from each country were extracted by restricting the 'affiliation' field in PubMed searches to individual country names. The selected countries or regions consisted of Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong and Taiwan. Past (October 2011 to March 2012) and present (June 2014 to January 2015) periods were searched. We then compared the performance of each country with regard to RCTs in terms of trial registration.
Results: We identified that from the five countries and regions included in the study, 29.4% (past) and 85.2 % (present) of the RCTs produced by Hong Kong had trials that were registered, followed by Singapore (18.2% in the past; 77.8% at present), Taiwan (13.9% in the past; 58.6% at present), Japan (26.9% in the past; 53.6% at present), and South Korea (22.8% in the past; 51.1% at present).
Conclusions: In the Asia-Pacific Region, trial registration as part of the current research paradigm is of greater concern in the present period. However, the proportion of trials that are registered is still not satisfactory. Our results suggest that researchers should pay more attention to registering their studies on the registry platform.
Objectives: To evaluate the attention paid to trial registration in selected countries in the Asia-Pacific Region in the last three years.
Methods: The published randomized controlled trials (RCTs) from each country were extracted by restricting the 'affiliation' field in PubMed searches to individual country names. The selected countries or regions consisted of Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong and Taiwan. Past (October 2011 to March 2012) and present (June 2014 to January 2015) periods were searched. We then compared the performance of each country with regard to RCTs in terms of trial registration.
Results: We identified that from the five countries and regions included in the study, 29.4% (past) and 85.2 % (present) of the RCTs produced by Hong Kong had trials that were registered, followed by Singapore (18.2% in the past; 77.8% at present), Taiwan (13.9% in the past; 58.6% at present), Japan (26.9% in the past; 53.6% at present), and South Korea (22.8% in the past; 51.1% at present).
Conclusions: In the Asia-Pacific Region, trial registration as part of the current research paradigm is of greater concern in the present period. However, the proportion of trials that are registered is still not satisfactory. Our results suggest that researchers should pay more attention to registering their studies on the registry platform.