Table 2 Criteria for assessing the quality of reporting of abstracts of RCTs in TCM
Items | Criteria for judgment | No. of abstracts reporting each item (n = 345) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Â | Â | Chinese (%) | English (%) |
General items | Â | Â | Â |
Title | Mentioned randomized or randomly allocation in the title | 28(8) | 25(7) |
Authors | Reported the contact details of corresponding author, e.g. postal address, email | 344(99) | 344(99) |
Trial design | Described as "parallel group", "cluster randomized", "crossover", etc. | 7(2) | 5(1) |
Trial registration | Reported the trial registration number and name of trial register | 0(0) | 0(0) |
Funding | Reported the source of funding for the trial | 93(27) | 0(0) |
Methods | Â | Â | Â |
Participants | Reported the details of the participants (included the demography, diagnosis, TCM syndrome) | 234(68) | 239(69) |
Interventions | Reported the details of the interventions for experimental group (included denomination, usage and course of treatment) | 163(47) | 152(44) |
| Â | Reported the details of the interventions for control group (included denomination, usage and course of treatment) | 179(52) | 168(49) |
Objective | Described as "to compare interventions(A) and (B) in patients with condition(C)" | 48(14) | 44(13) |
Outcome | Defined the primary outcome | 11(3) | 10(3) |
Randomization | Reported the method of random sequence generation | 17(5) | 14(4) |
| Â | Mentioned the allocation concealment (such as central randomization by telephone) | 0(0) | 0(0) |
Blinding | Specified exactly who was blinded | 1(0.3) | 0(0) |
| Â | Simply mentioned the trial as "single blind", or "double blind" | 39(11) | 39(11) |
Results | Â | Â | Â |
Numbers randomized | Reported the number of participants randomized to each group | 253(73) | 253(73) |
Numbers analyzed | Reported the number of participants included in analysis for each group | 13(4) | 12(4) |
Outcomes | Reported the result for each group (if the primary outcome not defined, reported the result of one listed outcome) | 195(57) | 190(55) |
| Â | Reported effect size, precision for the difference between groups | 2(1) | 2(1) |
Harms | Reported important adverse events or side effects | 50(15) | 48(14) |
Conclusions | Â | Â | Â |
| Â | Clearly stated the benefits and harms when interpreting the results | 4(1) | 3(1) |
| Â | Only stated the benefits when interpreting the results | 190(55) | 190(55) |