Quality assessment of randomized controlled trial abstracts on drug therapy of periodontal disease from the abstracts published in dental science citation indexed journals in the last ten years

Abstract

Background: Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) provide the highest level of evidence and are likely to influ-ence clinical decision-making. This study evaluated the reporting quality of RCT abstracts on drug therapy of periodontal disease and assessed the associated factors. Material and Methods: The Pubmed database was searched for periodontal RCTs published in Science Citation Indexed (SCI) dental journals from 2010/01/01 to 2019/07/17. Information was extracted from the abstracts according to a modified Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials (CONSORT) guideline checklist. The data was analyzed using descriptive statistical analysis and the statistical associations were examined using the linear regression analysis (P<0.05). Results: This study retrieved 1715 articles and 249 of them were finally included. The average overall CONSORT score was 15.6 ± 3.4, which represented 40.9% (±0.6) of CONSORT criteria filling. The reporting rate of some items (trial design, numbers analyzed, confidence intervals, intention-to-treat analysis or per-protocol analysis, harms, registration) was less than 30%. The adequate reporting rate of some items (participants, randomization, numbers analyzed, confidence intervals, intention-to-treat analysis or per protocol analysis) was no more than 4%. None of the abstracts reported funding. According to the multivariable linear regression results, number of authors (P=0.030), word count (P<0.001), continent (P=0.003), structured format (P<0.001), type of periodontal disease (P<0.001) and international collaboration (P=0.023) have a significant association with reporting quality. Conclusions: The quality of RCT abstracts on drug therapy of periodontal disease in SCI dental journals remained suboptimal. More efforts should be made to improve RCT abstracts reporting quality.