Quality Assessment of Randomized Controlled Trials in Shiraz University of Medical Sciences

Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT) is scientific investigations that evaluate the safety and efficacy of new drugs or therapeutic procedures by using human subjects. This study aimed to assess the quality of RCT reports at Shiraz University of Medical Sciences (SUMS) from 2014 to 2016. A systematic search was done in international databases with the keyword “SUMS” covering the three years yielding 9124 articles. Eventually, 120 articles were selected out of 540 RCT-based articles through proportional stratified sampling. We used the 2010 Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials (CONSORT) statement beside the Jadad scale to assess the quality of reports. We used the Pearson Correlation to investigate probable correlations between the CONSORT and Jadad mean scores and the Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) test to find the difference in the quality assessment tools in other studied variables. Among the selected articles, the average number of applicable reported items was 71.4 (59.5%) in the CONSORT 2010 checklist and 64 (53.4%) in Jadad. Among these RCTs, 55 (45.8%) had a high quality with Jadad scores ≥ 3 points. In addition, CONSORT and Jadad mean scores were significantly correlated (P <0.001, r: 0.808). We found no change in the mean score of CONSORT (P=0.788) or Jadad scale (P=0.492) over these three years. While the number of RCTs has gradually increased in these years, the quality of these reports has remained unchanged. Thus, national medical academics should make more efforts to conduct high-quality studies to ensure an appropriate study design.