Assessment of Randomized Controlled Clinical Trials articles in the Journal of Dental School, Mashhad University of Medical Sciences: Published 2003-2015

Introduction: Given the considerable attention to research in recent years, review and elimination of errors in any research are of great importance. With respect to the scant review articles within the field of dentistry, especially randomized controlled clinical trials, this study aimed to collect and review these articles. Materials & Methods: All randomized controlled clinical trials published in the Journal of Dental School, Mashhad University of Medical Sciences, Mashhad, Iran during 2003-2015 were collected and scored based on CONSORT checklist. Data analysis was performed in SPSS version 20. Central tendency and dispersion of the obtained scores were calculated. Accordingly, all articles were classified as weak, medium, good and excellent. Results: Among 514 collected articles, 64 were clinical trials, 40 of which were randomized controlled clinical trials. Most clinical trials (seven papers) were published during 2003-2009, whereas only one paper was published in 2012, 2005, 2004 and 2013. Mean and standard deviation of percentage of scores of all articles was 57.79±13.61. In addition, the highest mean score was obtained in 2014. Conclusion: According to the results of this study, given the importance of randomized controlled clinical trials, it seems necessary to overcome the mentioned shortcomings and increase the quality of these studies.