95 urn:lsid:arphahub.com:pub:02939EE0-163D-59B9-A896-E0B63CFEE862 European Science Editing ESE 0258-3127 2518-3354 European Association of Science Editors (EASE) 10.3897/ese.2022.e71240 71240 Original Article Equator guidelines Compliance of abstracts of randomized control trials with CONSORT guidelines: A case study of Balkan journals Sut Necdet necdetsut@yahoo.com 1 Koçak Zafer https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1918-7795 2 Korkmaz Selcuk 1 Uzun Cem 3 Trakya University, Medical Faculty, Department of Biostatistics and Medical Informatics, Edirne, Turkey Trakya University, Medical Faculty, Department of Biostatistics and Medical Informatics Edirne Turkey Trakya University, Medical Faculty, Department of Radiation Oncology, Edirne, Turkey Trakya University, Medical Faculty, Department of Radiation Oncology Edirne Turkey Koç University School of Medicine, Department of Otorhinolaryngology, Head and Neck Surgery, Istanbul, Turkey Koç University School of Medicine, Department of Otorhinolaryngology, Head and Neck Surgery Istanbul Turkey

Corresponding author: Necdet Sut (necdetsut@yahoo.com).

Academic editor: Ksenija Bazdaric

 2022 02 06 2022 48 DE51A0AB-EB5D-544E-AFE5-3919865E751F 07 07 2021 17 03 2022 Necdet Sut, Zafer Koçak, Selcuk Korkmaz, Cem Uzun This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Background: Published reports of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) are not compliant with the CONSORT checklist as much as they should.

Objective: To assess the quality, in terms of the level to which they are compliant with the CONSORT checklist, of abstracts of RCTs published in general medical journals in the Balkan region.

Methods: Two observers assessed the abstracts of RCTs published in five general medical journals of the Balkan region between 2012 and 2018 to determine the level to which the abstracts were compliant with the 16-item CONSORT abstracts checklist.

Results: Of the 183 studies that were identified for evaluation, 124 (67.8%) were excluded from the evaluation. The average compliance level was 44.5% (95%   CI: 41.9%–47.1%), the lowest being that for randomization (1.7%), funding (1.7%),

numbers analysed (11.0%), blinding (13.6%), and trial registration (18.6%). However, the compliance level was very high for conclusions (99.2%), objectives (96.6%), interventions (95.8%), and primary outcomes (83.9%). The length of the abstract (word count) and the level of compliance were positively correlated (rs = 0.43; p = 0.001). Abstracts of trials published in journals that endorse CONSORT in their publication policies were more compliant than those published in other journals (47.5 ± 10.4 versus 40.8 ± 8.0, p = 0.024).

Conclusion: The overall level of compliance with the CONSORT checklist was below 50%. To improve the quality of abstracts of RCTs, authors should be encouraged to use the CONSORT checklist, and editors should check compliance with the CONSORT guidelines as part the publishing workflow.