Quality of reporting in abstracts of RCTs published in emergency medicine journals: a systematic survey of the literature suggests we can do better.

Objective: We investigated the association between the publication of the Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials extension for abstracts (CONSORT-EA) and other variables of interest on the quality of reporting of abstracts of randomised controlled trials (RCTs) published in emergency medicine (EM) journals.

Methods: We performed a survey of the literature, comparing the quality of reporting before (2005-2007) with after (2014-2015) the publication of the dedicated CONSORT-EA in 2008. The quality of reporting was measured as the sum of items of the CONSORT-EA checklist reported in each abstract, ranging from 0 to 15.