Methodological quality of COVID-19 clinical research.
Nat Commun
; 12(1): 943, 2021 02 11.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-1078586
ABSTRACT
The COVID-19 pandemic began in early 2020 with major health consequences. While a need to disseminate information to the medical community and general public was paramount, concerns have been raised regarding the scientific rigor in published reports. We performed a systematic review to evaluate the methodological quality of currently available COVID-19 studies compared to historical controls. A total of 9895 titles and abstracts were screened and 686 COVID-19 articles were included in the final analysis. Comparative analysis of COVID-19 to historical articles reveals a shorter time to acceptance (13.0[IQR, 5.0-25.0] days vs. 110.0[IQR, 71.0-156.0] days in COVID-19 and control articles, respectively; p < 0.0001). Furthermore, methodological quality scores are lower in COVID-19 articles across all study designs. COVID-19 clinical studies have a shorter time to publication and have lower methodological quality scores than control studies in the same journal. These studies should be revisited with the emergence of stronger evidence.
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Periodicals as Topic
/
Data Accuracy
/
COVID-19
Type of study:
Experimental Studies
/
Prognostic study
/
Randomized controlled trials
/
Reviews
/
Systematic review/Meta Analysis
Limits:
Animals
/
Humans
Language:
English
Journal:
Nat Commun
Journal subject:
Biology
/
Science
Year:
2021
Document Type:
Article
Affiliation country:
S41467-021-21220-5
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