Likely country of origin in publications on randomised controlled trials and controlled clinical trials during the last 60 years.

ABSTRACT:

Background

The number of publications on clinical trials is unknown as well as the countries publishing most trial reports. To try to examine these questions we performed an ecological study.

Methods

We searched the 454,449 records on publications in The Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL) in The Cochrane Library, Issue 3, 2005 (CD-ROM version) for possible country of origin. We inspected a random sample of 906 records for information on country and type of trial.

Results

There was an exponential growth of publications on randomised controlled trials and controlled clinical trials since 1946, but the growth seems to have seized since 2000. We identified the possible country of origin of 210,974 publications (46.4%). The USA is leading with about 4

SUBMITTER: Gluud C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC1808475 | biostudies-literature | 2007 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature