Comparing trial registration data of 115 completed trials (22.8%) with their subsequent 136 publications, inconsistencies were identified in one or more of the following: sample size (11%), outcome assessor blinding (37.5%), primary outcomes (29%) and safety (28%) reporting.
The total percentage of publications with inconsistencies (18.98%) can be considered high for a dataset consisting of professors of a Federal University.
WE FIRMLY believe that scientists should spend less time diving into junk and more doing experiments…QKnowledge is an AI system that can parse publications, solve inconsistencies between them, and present them in a single easy-to-read document.
Five hundred and seventy-one publications had inconsistencies in the reference section.
It is hard to detect publication bias, inconsistency is clearly hard to evaluate, imprecision is likely and indirectness related to study site will be common.
In the GRADE approach for quantitative research, these factors are the risk of bias, publication bias, inconsistency, indirectness, imprecision of evidence, effect size, dose response relationships and confounders of findings [ 16].
To allow an accurate evaluation of abstracts of systematic reviews, the PRISMA Statement recommends that the limitations of the evidence (e.g., risk of bias, publication bias, inconsistency, imprecision) should be described in the abstract.
The GRADE working group has developed a systematic process to establish and present the confidence in the synthesised results of quantitative research through considering issues related to study design, risk of bias, publication bias, inconsistency, indirectness, imprecision of evidence, effect sizes, dose response relationships and confounders of findings [ 16].
The results indicate 18.98% of the analyzed publications present referential inconsistencies, which is a significant amount for a dataset that is supposed to be correct and trustable.
The quality of evidence depends on the elements of risk of bias, imprecision, indirectness, reporting and publication bias and inconsistency.
