Evaluation of reporting quality of the 2010 and 2012 National Surgical Congress oral presentations by CONSORT, STROBE and Timmer criteria.

OBJECTIVE This study aimed to evaluate the abstracts of oral presentations that were accepted to the National Surgical Congress by CONSORT, STROBE and Timmer criteria and to recommend development of a national abstract assessment system. MATERIAL AND METHODS Presentation scores were calculated for oral presentations that have been accepted to the 2010 and 2012 National Surgical Congresses and have been included in the digital congress abstract booklets by two independent reviewers who were blinded to information regarding both the author and the institution. The CONSORT and Timmer criteria were used for randomized controlled trials, and for observational studies the STROBE and Timmer criteria were used. The presentation score that was obtained by three different evaluation systems was accepted as the main variable. The score changes according to the two congresses, the influence of the reviewers on the presentation scores, and compatibility between the two reviewers were evaluated. Comparisons regarding study types and total presentation number were made by using the chi-square test, the compatibility between the total score of the presentations were made by the Mann-Whitney U test and the compatibility between the reviewers were evaluated by the Wilcoxon signed ranks test. RESULTS There was no difference between the two Congresses in terms of study type distribution and total number of accepted presentations (p=0.844). The total scores of randomized controlled trials and observational studies from the 2010 and 2012 National Surgical Congresses that were evaluated by two independent reviewers with different assessment tools did not show any significant difference (p>0.05). A significant difference was observed between the reviewers in their evaluation by CONSORT, STROBE and Timmer criteria (p<0.05). CONCLUSION Implementation of standard criteria for the evaluation of abstracts that are sent to congresses is important in terms of presentation reporting quality. The existing criteria should be revised according to national factors, in order to reduce the significant differences between reviewers. It is believed that discussions on a new evaluation system will be beneficial in terms of the development of a national assessment system.