A quantitative and qualitative evaluation of reports of clinical trials published in six Brazilian dental journals indexed in the Scientific Electronic Library Online (SciELO)

Raphael Freitas De Souza,Mona Nasser,Carolina De Andrade Lima Chaves,Zbys Fedorowicz

doi:10.1590/s1678-77572010000200002

Abstract

Open access publishing is becoming increasingly popular within the biomedical sciences. SciELO, the Scientific Electronic Library Online, is a digital library covering a selected collection of Brazilian scientific journals many of which provide open access to full-text articles. This library includes a number of dental journals some of which may include reports of clinical trials in English, Portuguese and/or Spanish. Thus, SciELO could play an important role as a source of evidence for dental healthcare interventions especially if it yields a sizeable number of high quality reports.ObjectiveThe aim of this study was to identify reports of clinical trials by handsearching of dental journals that are accessible through SciELO, and to assess the overall quality of these reports.Material and methodsElectronic versions of six Brazilian dental Journals indexed in SciELO were handsearched at www.scielo.br in September 2008. Reports of clinical trials were identified and classified as controlled clinical trials (CCTs - prospective, experimental studies comparing 2 or more healthcare interventions in human beings) or randomized controlled trials (RCTs - a random allocation method is clearly reported), according to Cochrane eligibility criteria. Criteria to assess methodological quality included: method of randomization, concealment of treatment allocation, blinded outcome assessment, handling of withdrawals and losses and whether an intention-totreat analysis had been carried out.ResultsThe search retrieved 33 CCTs and 43 RCTs. A majority of the reports provided no description of either the method of randomization (75.3%) or concealment of the allocation sequence (84.2%). Participants and outcome assessors were reported as blinded in only 31.2% of the reports. Withdrawals and losses were only clearly described in 6.5% of the reports and none mentioned an intention-totreat analysis or any similar procedure.ConclusionsThe results of this study indicate that a substantial number of reports of trials and systematic reviews are available in the dental journals listed in SciELO, and that these could provide valuable evidence for clinical decision making. However, it is clear that the quality of a number of these reports is of some concern and that improvement in the conduct and reporting of these trials could be achieved if authors adhered to internationally accepted guidelines, e.g. the CONSORT statement.

Highlights

There has been an increased trend over the last decade towards open access publishing of health science literature8, the main goals of which are the improvement of scholarly interaction, the creation of options for sharing knowledge without cost and with a perception that this will lead to a reduction in the barriers to the growth of science
The Scientific Electronic Library Online (SciELO) has previously been highlighted as a successful example of open access publishing6. It houses a collection of dental journals, which receive manuscripts in English, Portuguese and/or Spanish, many of which might include clinical trials, systematic reviews which could be an important source of evidence for effectiveness of interventions in dentistry
Similar results have been found with Polish journals where 40% of the reports of randomized clinical trials (RCTs) were not retrievable by means of a search on MEDLINE1. it is conceivable that SciELO dental journals contain a substantial number of reports of clinical trials which are not widely accessible but which could be an important source of both evidence for effectiveness of healthcare interventions and a potential source of eligible studies for systematic reviews

Summary

Introduction

There has been an increased trend over the last decade towards open access publishing of health science literature, the main goals of which are the improvement of scholarly interaction, the creation of options for sharing knowledge without cost and with a perception that this will lead to a reduction in the barriers to the growth of science. The Scientific Electronic Library Online (SciELO) has previously been highlighted as a successful example of open access publishing6 It houses a collection of dental journals, which receive manuscripts in English, Portuguese and/or Spanish, many of which might include clinical trials, systematic reviews which could be an important source of evidence for effectiveness of interventions in dentistry. Similar results have been found with Polish journals where 40% of the reports of RCTs were not retrievable by means of a search on MEDLINE1. it is conceivable that SciELO dental journals contain a substantial number of reports of clinical trials which are not widely accessible but which could be an important source of both evidence for effectiveness of healthcare interventions and a potential source of eligible studies for systematic reviews

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion