Quality of reporting according to the CONSORT, STROBE and Timmer instrument at the American Burn Association (ABA) annual meetings 2000 and 2008

Table 5 Quality of reporting of abstracts at BURNS annual meeting 2000 and 2008 according to the STROBE criteria for observational studies

Timmer instrument for observational studies	2000				2008
	oral		poster		0ral		poster
	n	%	n	%	n	%	n	%
Question/objective sufficiently described?	50	65	36	77	73	74	25	63
Design evident and appropriate to answer study question?	75	97	46	98	95	97	61	95
Subject characteristics sufficiently described?	45	58	27	57	61	62	36	56
Subjects appropriate to the study question?	68	88	41	87	95	97	54	84
Method of subject selection described and appropriate?	61	79	44	94	81	83	52	81
Outcome measure well defined and robust to measurement bias? Means of assessment reported?	25	32	18	38	73	74	37	58
Confounding accounted for?	0	0	1	2	0	0	0	0
Sample size adequate?	0	0	0	0	12	12	0	0
Post hoc power calculations or confidence intervals reported for statistically non significant results?	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Statistical analyses appropriate?	71	92	35	74	89	91	57	89
Statistical tests stated?	15	19	7	15	27	28	10	16
Exact p-values or confidence intervals stated?	72	92	40	85	90	92	58	88
Attrition of subjects and reason for attrition recorded?	34	44	20	43	54	55	42	66
Results reported in sufficient detail?	74	96	40	85	82	84	61	98
Do the results support the conclusions?	72	94	45	96	89	91	56	88
Sum (items 1-15)

ISSN: 1471-2288