engleski

THE REPORTING QUALITY OF ABSTRACTS OF RANDOMIZED CONTROLLED TRIALS ON GINKGO BILOBA

Objectives: The aim of the study was to analyze Ginkgo biloba RCT abstracts publicly available on PubMed using the CONSORT checklist. Patients and Methods: A PubMed search for all RCTs on Gingko biloba was performed. The search strategy used the term ‘Gingko biloba` and the term ‘randomized controlled trial’ as article type. Inclusion criteria was abstract`s availability. The search was carried out in January 2020. To assess the reporting quality of analyzed abstracts, the 16 item CONSORT checklist for abstracts was used. The following abstract`s data were analyzed: article title, year of publication, journal name, journal impact factor and quartile of the category in the year the article was published. Furthermore, data such as randomization in the title, contact of the corresponding author, trial design, participants, intervention, objective, outcome, randomization, blinding, number, number 2, outcome, conclusion, trial registration and funding source were evaluated. Results: The PubMed search resulted with 309 abstracts which included Ginkgo biloba, out of which 62 were excluded. Forty-eight of the excluded abstracts were published in the period from 1980 to 1996, and there is no available data of journal impact factors and quartiles for this period. The median value of all journals impact factor was 1.818 and the journal with the highest impact factor included in this study was JAMA (year 2002 16.586, year 2008 31.718 and year 2009 28.899). The most reported items were as follows: participants (207, 83.81%), trial design (224, 90.69%), conclusion (234, 94.74%), primary outcome and objective (both 237, 95.95%). The median value of all the abstracts was 8 (95 confidence interval 8-9). Only one abstract, published in journal Lancet Neurology, contained all the CONSORT items. Conclusion: Based on the 16 items of CONSORT for abstracts, the quality of reporting randomized controlled trial abstracts on Ginkgo biloba is low. This lack of reporting quality means a loss in reproducibility and the assumption of an overall decreased quality of the respective paper.

Ginko biloba, randomized controlled trials (RCT), evidence based medicine

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