title: An assessment of factors associated with quality of randomized controlled trials for smoking cessation.
abstract: To reduce smoking-related diseases, a research priority is to develop effective interventions for smoking cessation, and evidence from randomized controlled trials (RCTs) is usually considered to be the most valid. However, findings from RCTs may still be misleading due to methodological flaws. This study aims to assess the quality of 1083 RCTs of smoking cessation interventions in 41 relevant Cochrane Systematic Reviews (CSRs). Logistic regression analysis was performed to identify significant variables associated with the quality of RCTs. It was found that evidence for smoking cessation from RCTs was predominantly from high income countries, and the overall quality was high in only 8.6% of the RCTs. High quality RCTs tended to have a larger sample size, to be more recently published, and conducted in multiple countries belonging to different income categories. In conclusion, the overall quality of RCTs of smoking cessation interventions is far from perfect, and more RCTs in less developed countries are required to generate high grade evidence for global tobacco control. Collaboration between researchers in developed and less developed countries should be encouraged.
authors.affiliation: Center for Health Policy and Management Research, Nanjing University, Nanjing, P.R.China.|Department of Social Medicine and Health Education, School of Public Health, Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, P.R.China.
authors.forename: Hong
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Fan
authors.affiliation: Department of Population Health and Primary Care, Norwich Medical School, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK.
authors.forename: Fujian
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Song
authors.affiliation: Center for Health Policy and Management Research, Nanjing University, Nanjing, P.R.China.
authors.forename: Hai
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Gu
authors.affiliation: Department of Social Medicine and Health Education, School of Public Health, Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, P.R.China.|Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Public Health, Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, P.R.China.
authors.forename: Jianming
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Department of Social Medicine and Health Education, School of Public Health, Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, P.R.China.
authors.forename: Guizhen
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Jia
authors.affiliation: Department of Social Medicine and Health Education, School of Public Health, Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, P.R.China.
authors.forename: Moyuan
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Lu
authors.affiliation: Department of Social Medicine and Health Education, School of Public Health, Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, P.R.China.
authors.forename: Jiao
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Qian
authors.affiliation: Department of Social Medicine and Health Education, School of Public Health, Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, P.R.China.
authors.forename: Lei
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Department of Social Medicine and Health Education, School of Public Health, Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, P.R.China.
authors.forename: Jiemiao
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Shen
authors.affiliation: Department of Social Medicine and Health Education, School of Public Health, Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, P.R.China.
authors.forename: Zhewen
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Ren
mesh_terms: D006801:Humans; D011785:Quality Assurance, Health Care; D016032:Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic / Q000592:standards*; D016540:Smoking Cessation / Q000379:methods*
keywords: quality; randomized controlled trials; smoking cessation