Quality of descriptions of treatments: a review of published randomised controlled trials

OBJECTIVES: To be useable in clinical practice, treatments studied in trials must provide sufficient information to enable clinicians and researchers to replicate. We sought to assess the completeness of treatment descriptions in published randomised controlled trials using a checklist and to determine the extent to which peer reviewers and editors comment on the quality of reporting of treatments. DESIGN: Cross-sectional study. SETTING: Trials published in the BMJ, a general medical journal. PARTICIPANTS: 51 trials published in the BMJ were independently evaluated by two raters using the checklist. Reviewers’ and editors’ comments were also assessed for statements on treatment descriptions. PRIMARY AND SECONDARY OUTCOME MEASURES: Proportion of trials rated as replicable (primary outcome). RESULTS: For 57% (29/51) of the papers, published treatment descriptions were not considered sufficient to allow replication. Most poorly described aspects were the actual procedures involved includin...