RESUMEN
BACKGROUND: The conduct of high-quality pilot studies can help inform the success of larger clinical trials. Guidelines have been recently developed for the reporting of pilot trials. OBJECTIVE: This methodological survey evaluates the completeness of reporting in pilot randomized controlled trials in chronic kidney disease patients on hemodialysis (HD patients) and explores factors associated with better completion of reporting. METHODS: The authors searched Pubmed on July 1, 2018, for all pilot trials conducted in HD patients. Reporting quality was assessed against the 40-item Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials (CONSORT) Extension for Pilot Trials. Study factors including year and country of publication, intervention, number of centers, type of funding, and journal endorsement of CONSORT were also examined. RESULTS: The mean number of items reported from the CONSORT extension for pilot trials across all included articles was 18.4 (standard deviation [SD] = 4.4). In the adjusted analysis, studies reported in later years (IRR = 1.026, 95% CI [1.018, 1.034], p < 0.001) and an increase of 20 persons in sample size (adjusted IRR = 1.021, 95% CI [1.010, 1.031], p < 0.001) were associated with a significantly higher number of CONSORT pilot items reported. CONCLUSIONS: Current reporting completeness of pilot trials in HD patients is suboptimal. Endorsing the CONSORT extension specific to pilot and feasibility studies and ensuring that pilot trials focus on the feasibility objectives may improve reporting completeness of these trials.
RESUMEN
OBJECTIVES: The primary objective of this systematic survey was to examine the percentage of studies in which there was agreement in the reporting of the primary outcome between the currently updated version of the clinical trial registry and the published paper. We also investigated the factors associated with agreement in reporting of the primary outcome. METHODS: We searched PubMed for all randomized control trials (RCT)s published in 2012-2015 in the top five general medicine journals (based on the 2014 impact factor). Two hundred abstracts (50 from each year) were randomly selected for data extraction. Agreement in reporting of 11 key study conduct items (e.g., sample size) and study characteristics (e.g., funding, number of sites) were extracted by two independent reviewers. ANALYSIS: Descriptive analyses were conducted to determine the proportion of studies on which there was agreement in reporting of key study conduct items. Generalized estimating equations were used to explore factors associated with agreement in reporting of the primary outcome. RESULTS: Of the 200 included studies, 87% had agreement in reporting of the primary outcome. After adjusting for other covariates, having greater than 50 sites was associated with an increased likelihood of agreement in reporting of the primary outcome (odds ratio=7.1, 95% confidence interval=1.39, 36.27, p=0.018). CONCLUSIONS: We identified substantive disagreement in reporting between publications and current clinical trial registry, which were associated with several study characteristics. Further measures are needed to improve reporting given the potential threats to the quality and integrity of scientific research.