Reporting quality of randomized controlled trial abstracts among high-impact general medical journals: a review and analysis

Objective: To assess adherence to The Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials (CONSORT) for Abstracts by five high-impact general medical journals and to assess whether quality of reporting was homogeneous across these journals.
Design: Descriptive, cross-sectional study.
Setting: Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT) abstracts in five high-impact general medical journals.
Participants: We used up to 100 RCT abstracts published between 2011 and 2014 from each of the following journals: The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), the Annals of Internal Medicine (Annals IM), The Lancet, the British Medical Journal (The BMJ), and the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).
Main Outcome: The primary outcome was percent overall adherence to the 19-item CONSORT for abstracts checklist. Secondary outcomes included percent adherence in checklist subcategories and assessing homogeneity of reporting quality across the individual journals.
Results: Search results yielded 466 abst...