Variation in outcomes in trials reporting effects of diet and lifestyle based intervention on pregnancy outcomes: a systematic review.

Abstract

Obesity is a growing threat to women of childbearing age. Increased maternal weight or excessive weight gain in pregnancy is associated with adverse pregnancy outcomes. Interventions based on diet and physical activity minimise gestational weight gain with varied effect on a number of clinical outcomes. There is no consensus amongst the trialists on the core outcomes that need to be reported to inform the clinical care of pregnant women. The aim of this systematic review is to evaluate variation in the type and quality of outcomes reported in systematic reviews and randomised controlled trials on diet and lifestyle interventions on maternal and fetal outcomes. We will assess the correlation between the type of outcome, the quality of the studies and journal impact factor. We searched the major databases from the inception to October 2013 without language restrictions. We used current recommendations for quality of outcome reporting using a 6-point scale. The quality assessment of systematic reviews and RCTs was performed using the AMSTAR and Jadad scoring systems. Additionally we obtained journals' impact factor in the year of publication. We calculated Spearman rank coefficient to assess the correlation between the type of outcome, and study quality. An overview of outcome reporting will show the current attitude of the researchers towards outcomes of importance when conducting trials on diet and lifestyle management in pregnancy. If our abstract is accepted, we will provide the details of the results.