Quality assessment

Assessment of all included trials was carried out by two independent reviewers, and the results were entered directly into a preformatted Excel spreadsheet. Each item was assigned a yes (Y, scored as 1) or no (N, scored as 0) response depending on whether it was reported by the author and each item was weighted with equal importance. A total quality of reporting score, the CONSORT score, was calculated by simply summing the scores of the 37-item checklist, resulting in a possible range of 0–37. Thus, the maximum possible score was 37 points. Each of the study articles was then independently scored by two investigators. A final score for each item on the checklist was recorded for each article after consensus was reached through discussion between the two or in some cases, after arbitration by a third investigator. The articles were grouped by type of intervention. The main outcome was the total percentage of articles that reported each applicable section on the checklist. For clarity, the Table 2 has been depicted which 37 items would be expected to be reported. We compared the total mean number and the percentages reported of scores for each item of the CONSORT checklist between five interventions groups.

Quality of published articles in diabetes trials based on CONSORT items