APPLICATION OF THE CONSOLIDATED STANDARDS OF REPORTING TRIALS (CONSORT) IN THE FRACTURE CARE LITERATURE

The randomized controlled trial permits valid inferences concerning treatment effect and can thus have a powerful and immediate impact on patient care1. For clinicians to apply the results of randomized controlled trials to their patients, the published report should provide information concerning the study participants and the design, conduct, and analysis of the trial2. In essence, the authors should provide enough information for clinicians to judge whether there were important deficiencies that threaten the validity of the trial and whether they can confidently apply the results to their own patients. In a recent effort to improve the reporting of randomized controlled trials, a group of methodologists and journal editors developed the consolidated standards of reporting trials (CONSORT) statement, which was first published in JAMA (The Journal of the American Medical Association) in 19962. CONSORT provides a checklist and flow diagram to guide authors in the preparation of reports on their randomized controlled trial. The CONSORT checklist consists of twenty-one items that pertain mainly to the methods, results, and discussion in a report of a randomized controlled trial and that identify key pieces of information necessary to evaluate the internal and external validity of the report. While many reputable journals, including JAMA, BMJ (The British Medical Journal), The Lancet , and Annals of Internal Medicine, have adopted CONSORT standards, the rigor of enforcement varies3. The editors of JAMA expect manuscripts reporting randomized controlled trials to include all of the information in the CONSORT checklist and to be accompanied by the checklist as well as the numbers of the pages in the manuscript on which each item can be found. Other journals that have endorsed CONSORT provide minimal checks on compliance. Critical reviews of published clinical trials in general medical journals have documented widespread …