BMJ 2000;320:1007 ( 8 April )

Letters

Intention to treat analysis is related to methodological quality

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

EDITORIn their survey of all randomised controlled trials published in 1997 in four major medical journals, Hollis and Campbell found that only 48% of the reports explicitly mentioned intention to treat analysis.¹ In a considerable proportion it was insufficiently described and sometimes inadequately applied. Their results are confirmed by our assessment of all randomised controlled trials published between 1993 and 1995 in the same four journals.² In addition to our assessment of ethical issues, we calculated the proportion of randomised controlled trials reporting intention to treat analysis in accordance with different descriptive and methodological characteristics.

In our review of 608 randomised controlled trials, we found that 290 of the trials (47.7%) explicitly mentioned that they applied the principle of intention to treat analysis. The reporting of this issue increased slightly between 1993 and 1995 (although the increase was not significant). Trials with a greater number of participants and those funded by the pharmaceutical industry were . . . [Full text of this article]

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Relevant Article

What is meant by intention to treat analysis? Survey of published randomised controlled trials

Sally Hollis and Fiona Campbell
BMJ 1999 319: 670-674. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

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