Abstract
BackgroundDuring the COVID-19 pandemic, the scientific world is in urgent need for new evidence on the treatment of COVID patients. The reporting quality is crucial for transparent scientific publication. Concerns of data integrity, methodology and transparency were raised. Here, we assessed the adherence of observational studies comparing treatments of COVID 19 to the STROBE checklist in 2020.MethodsDesign: We performed a retrospective, cross-sectional study. Setting: We conducted a systematic literature search in the Medline database. This study was performed at the RWTH Aachen University Hospital, Department of Anaesthesiology Participants: We extracted all observational studies on the treatment of COVID-19 patients from the year 2020. Main outcome measures: The adherence of each publication to the STROBE checklist items was analysed. The journals’ impact factor (IF), the country of origin, the kind of investigated treatment and the month of publication were assessed.ResultsWe analysed 147 observational studies and found a mean adherence of 45.6% to the STROBE checklist items. The percentage adherence per publication correlated significantly with the journals’ IF (point estimate for the difference between 1st and 4th quartile 11.07%, 95% CI 5.12 to 17.02, p < 0.001). U.S. American authors gained significantly higher adherence to the checklist than Chinese authors, mean difference 9.10% (SD 2.85%, p = 0.023).ConclusionsWe conclude a poor reporting quality of observational studies on the treatment of COVID-19 throughout the year 2020. A considerable improvement is mandatory.
Highlights
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the scientific world is in urgent need for new evidence on the treatment of COVID patients
The Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (STROBE) statement provides a renowned guideline in order to enhance the reporting quality of observational studies [5]
Articles We screened a total of 6102 articles via our search strategy for the entire year 2020 and identified a total of 1610 observational studies
Summary
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the scientific world is in urgent need for new evidence on the treatment of COVID patients. In the rapidly evolving situation in the first year of the pandemic, evidence from RTCs on treatment options of COVID-19 was scarce and most evidence was provided within the framework of observational studies. Manuscripts were written, submitted, reviewed and published under particular time constraints in order to provide health care professionals with new knowledge as fast as possible. No evidence on the quality of reporting of observational studies about treatments for COVID-19 exists. We aimed to analyse the adherence of the reporting of analytical, observational studies on the treatment of COVID-19 to the STROBE statement. We hypothesised an improvable reporting quality of publications on this topic from the year 2020
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