Assessing the Quality of the COVID-19 Articles Published by Persian Researchers Using the CASP Checklist

The COVID-19 pandemic reminded scientists of the importance of designing and implementing efficient research. In this study, the frequency and quality of Iranian researchers’ manuscripts about COVID-19 were evaluated.

A comprehensive search was conducted on June 30, 2020, to assess the quality of published articles. PubMed, Embase, and Scopus databases were searched. The inclusion criteria were all articles in the field of COVID-19 published by an Iranian author in English. The authors reviewed the original research articles and systematic reviews using the Critical Appraisal Skills Programme (CASP) Checklists. Descriptive statistics and frequency distributions were reported.

After removing duplicates, 347 out of 871 related retrieved articles were remained. Among 35 original articles, thirty-one (88.6%) of them were Cross-sectional articles. There were only one Randomized clinical trial article, one Casecontrol, and two diagnostic articles. Among original researches, deficiency in reporting the sampling method, data analysis, the accuracy of the measurements, sample size calculation method, and choosing comparison groups and blinding (in RCTs) were the most common problems. Nearly 40% of original articles and 81.3% of systematic reviews andmeta-analyses were classified as good-quality articles.

Most original articles did not have good quality, while the decisions about treatment and prevention of COVID-19 and policy-making about social restriction depend on the quality of the articles. Journals should be more careful in reviewing articles critically.