Critical Evaluation of the Published Clinical Trials Regarding the Effect of Complementary Medicine on Menopausal Symptoms

Clinical trials in the field of menopause play a critical role in producing valid evidence due to the importance of women’s health in the family and society. The results of clinical trials could be used in the evidence-based medicine in case they have a good quality and precise methodology. Therefore, this study aimed to evaluate the quality of clinical trials published by Iranian authors regarding the effects of complementary medicine on menopausal symptoms.
This descriptive study assessed the clinical trials published during 2007-2016 concerning the impact of complementary medicine on menopausal symptoms. The articles of Iranian journals indexed in SID, Iranmedex, Irandoc, Magiran, and Google Scholar were selected. Several keywords were utilized for searching, including menopause, complementary medicine, massage therapy, acupressure, herbal medicine, and clinical trials. Finally, 47 out of 238 retrieved articles were critically appraised using the Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials (CONSORT) checklist 2010. The maximum and minimum score that each article could obtain was 37 and zero, respectively. All the data were analyzed using descriptive statistics by SPSS version 16.
The findings of present study demonstrated that the mean score of overall quality for the reviewed articles was 23.93±3.94 with the maximum and maximum scores of 16 and 33, respectively. It was revealed that among the 47 clinical trials, sample size calculation, randomization method, type and method of blinding, and the method for generating a random allocation sequence were mentioned in 21 (44.68%), 20 (46.5), 19 (40.42), and 35 (74.46%) studies, respectively. In addition, the used statistical methods were also noted in 46 (97.87%) studies. In the qualitative assessment, the highest mean score was obtained for the introduction and the least for the materials and methods parts.
According to the results of this study, the clinical trials published in Iranian medical journals are moderate in terms of study design and reporting method. Consequently, it is recommended that the editors, referees, and researchers of clinical trials, apply a standard guideline for designing and reporting the results of clinical trials. Moreover, the necessary steps for trainings in this regard should be considered.