Comparison between the Accuracy of Recorded Outcomes in Clinical Trials Registered on the Iranian Registry of Clinical Trials Website and Articles Published in the Nursing and Midwifery Journals

There are different types of biases in clinical trial studies. Selective outcome reporting is one of these biases occurring when the publication of research findings is influenced by the nature and direction of the results. Therefore, the present study aimed to compare selective outcome reporting bias in clinical trials registered in the Iranian Registry of Clinical Trials (IRCT) website with articles published in the nursing and midwifery journals.

In this descriptive-analytical study, all clinical trial studies published in the Iranian Journal of Nursing and Midwifery from March 2018 to March 2019 that had met the inclusion criteria were selected using the Census sampling method. The data were collected using a researcher-made checklist that was used to check the status of the journals, compare the outcomes in the IRCT website with those reported in the Methods and Results sections of published articles, and assess the significant and non-significant primary and secondary outcomes.

The findings of the study revealed that out of 223 articles published in 33 Midwifery Nursing Journals, only half of the articles had IRCT code. Moreover, 63% of the primary outcome and 18% of the secondary outcome recorded in the IRCT were different from the primary and secondary outcomes reported in the Methodology section of the article, which led to the removal of 59% of primary outcomes recorded on the IRCT website.

The results of the present study revealed that although many nursing and midwifery journals had made it mandatory to register clinical trials on the IRCT website, only half of the articles had IRCT code. In addition, more than half of the outcomes reported in articles undergo deletion, modification, or addition of new consequences, which lead to the publication