A scoping review of comparisons between abstracts and full reports in primary biomedical research

Guowei Li; Luciana P F Abbade; Ikunna Nwosu; Yanling Jin; Alvin Leenus; Muhammad Maaz; Mei Wang; Meha Bhatt; Laura Zielinski; Nitika Sanger; Bianca Bantoto; Candice Luo; Ieta Shams; Hamnah Shahid; Yaping Chang; Guangwen Sun; Lawrence Mbuagbaw; Zainab Samaan; Mitchell A H Levine; Jonathan D Adachi; Lehana Thabane

doi:10.1186/s12874-017-0459-5

A scoping review of comparisons between abstracts and full reports in primary biomedical research

BMC Med Res Methodol. 2017 Dec 29;17(1):181. doi: 10.1186/s12874-017-0459-5.

Authors

Guowei Li^{1

2

3}, Luciana P F Abbade⁴, Ikunna Nwosu⁵, Yanling Jin⁵, Alvin Leenus⁶, Muhammad Maaz⁶, Mei Wang⁵, Meha Bhatt⁵, Laura Zielinski⁷, Nitika Sanger⁸, Bianca Bantoto⁹, Candice Luo⁶, Ieta Shams¹⁰, Hamnah Shahid¹¹, Yaping Chang⁵, Guangwen Sun⁵, Lawrence Mbuagbaw^{5

12}, Zainab Samaan^{5

13}, Mitchell A H Levine^{5

12

14

13}, Jonathan D Adachi^{5

12

13}, Lehana Thabane^{15

16

17}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Health Research Methods, Evidence, and Impact, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, Canada. lig28@mcmaster.ca.
² St. Joseph's Healthcare Hamilton, McMaster University, 501-25 Charlton Avenue East, Hamilton, ON, L8N 1Y2, Canada. lig28@mcmaster.ca.
³ Centre for Evaluation of Medicines, Programs for Assessment of Technology in Health (PATH) Research Institute, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, Canada. lig28@mcmaster.ca.
⁴ Department of Dermatology and Radiotherapy, Botucatu Medical School, Universidade Estadual Paulista, UNESP, São Paulo, Brazil.
⁵ Department of Health Research Methods, Evidence, and Impact, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, Canada.
⁶ Faculty of Health Sciences, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, Canada.
⁷ McMaster Integrative Neuroscience Discovery and Study, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, Canada.
⁸ Medical Sciences, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, Canada.
⁹ Integrated Sciences, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, Canada.
¹⁰ Psychology, Neuroscience and Behaviour, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, Canada.
¹¹ Arts and Science, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, Canada.
¹² St. Joseph's Healthcare Hamilton, McMaster University, 501-25 Charlton Avenue East, Hamilton, ON, L8N 1Y2, Canada.
¹³ Department of Medicine, McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada.
¹⁴ Centre for Evaluation of Medicines, Programs for Assessment of Technology in Health (PATH) Research Institute, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, Canada.
¹⁵ Department of Health Research Methods, Evidence, and Impact, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, Canada. ThabanL@mcmaster.ca.
¹⁶ St. Joseph's Healthcare Hamilton, McMaster University, 501-25 Charlton Avenue East, Hamilton, ON, L8N 1Y2, Canada. ThabanL@mcmaster.ca.
¹⁷ Father Sean O'Sullivan Research Centre, St. Joseph's Healthcare Hamilton, 3rd Floor Martha, Room H325, 50 Charlton Avenue E, Hamilton, ON, L8N 4A6, Canada. ThabanL@mcmaster.ca.

Abstract

Background: Evidence shows that research abstracts are commonly inconsistent with their corresponding full reports, and may mislead readers. In this scoping review, which is part of our series on the state of reporting of primary biomedical research, we summarized the evidence from systematic reviews and surveys, to investigate the current state of inconsistent abstract reporting, and to evaluate factors associated with improved reporting by comparing abstracts and their full reports.

Methods: We searched EMBASE, Web of Science, MEDLINE, and CINAHL from January 1st 1996 to September 30th 2016 to retrieve eligible systematic reviews and surveys. Our primary outcome was the level of inconsistency between abstracts and corresponding full reports, which was expressed as a percentage (with a lower percentage indicating better reporting) or categorized rating (such as major/minor difference, high/medium/low inconsistency), as reported by the authors. We used medians and interquartile ranges to describe the level of inconsistency across studies. No quantitative syntheses were conducted. Data from the included systematic reviews or surveys was summarized qualitatively.

Results: Seventeen studies that addressed this topic were included. The level of inconsistency was reported to have a median of 39% (interquartile range: 14% - 54%), and to range from 4% to 78%. In some studies that separated major from minor inconsistency, the level of major inconsistency ranged from 5% to 45% (median: 19%, interquartile range: 7% - 31%), which included discrepancies in specifying the study design or sample size, designating a primary outcome measure, presenting main results, and drawing a conclusion. A longer time interval between conference abstracts and the publication of full reports was found to be the only factor which was marginally or significantly associated with increased likelihood of reporting inconsistencies.

Conclusions: This scoping review revealed that abstracts are frequently inconsistent with full reports, and efforts are needed to improve the consistency of abstract reporting in the primary biomedical community.

Keywords: Abstract; Accuracy; Deficiency; Discrepancy; Inconsistent reporting; Scoping review; Spin.

Publication types

Comparative Study
Review

MeSH terms

Abstracting and Indexing / standards*
Bias
Biomedical Research / standards*
Humans
Periodicals as Topic / standards*
Periodicals as Topic / statistics & numerical data
Publishing / standards
Publishing / statistics & numerical data
Research Design / standards
Research Report / standards*
Review Literature as Topic