The Quality of the Reporting of Randomized Controlled Trials after CONSORT Statement in the Prestigious Journals

The quality of reporting Randomized Controlled Trials (RCTs) in the most prestigious scientific medical journals was investigated to show that what extent the items in the Consolidated Standard of Reporting Trials (CONSORT) 2010 checklist are addressed. In this cross-sectional study five the most prestigious scientific medical journals that they had high impact factor (IF) were selected including: Lancet, New England Journal of Medicine, British Medical Journal, Journal of the American Medical Association, and Canadian Medical Association Journal. Ten randomized controlled trials in 2011 and 2012 were selected randomly from each journal. The percentage of items in the CONSORT checklist for each study was investigated. The total percentage of items addressed by these studies was 74.06 (95%CI: 71.21, 76.90). We concluded that reporting of RCTs published in the top and the most prestigious scientific medical journals are not desirable and not enough yet.