Evaluation of randomized controlled trials in the studies of clinical nutrition / 中华临床营养杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To evaluate the quality of the randomized controlled trials (RCTs) published in two key Chineze journals on clinical nutrition.Methods The articles published in CHINESE JOURNAL OF CLIN-ICAL NUTRlTION and PARENTERAL & ENTERAL NUTRITION from 2000 to 2008 were reviewed and the RCTs were identified according to criteria of the handbook of Cochrane Collaboration.The Jadad scale was used to evalu-ate the quality of these RCTs.Results Totally 238 RCT articles were published in these two journals in this peri-od.The Jadad score of all RCT articles was 1.65±0.82.Twenty-eight articles (11.76%) were of high quality and only 5 articles (2.10%) were identified 5 points.There were some problems in the RCTs design,conduction and analyses included unclear randomization methods,poor comparison,lack of inclusion and exclusion criteria.less blinding employment,unclear withdrawals and dropouts,and improper sample size.Conclusion The design and quality control of Chinese clinical nutrition RCTs still have some problems and require further improvement.