COVID-19 ve SARS-Cov-2 Konusunda Türkiye Kaynaklı Bilimsel Yayınların Metodolojik Özelliklerinin ve Raporlama Kılavuzlarına Uyumlarının Değerlendirilmesi

Abstract

With the emergence of "Coronavirus Disease 2019" (COVID-19) caused by "Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2" (SARS-CoV-2), and its evolution into a devastating pandemic, a rapid increase has been observed in the number of scientific reports in this field. The present descriptive study was undertaken to examine the methodological characteristics of publications originating from Turkey on COVID-19 and SARS-CoV-2, and to investigate the compliance of the reporting characteristics of analytical observational and experimental studies with scientific reporting guidelines through relevant checklists. All scientific reports on COVID-19 and SARS-CoV-2 originating from Turkey published in English or Turkish listed between March 10, 2020 and March 10, 2022 within the LitCovid literature hub was included in the study. Among 1063 methodologically examined publications, there was not any systematic review and meta-analysis; the number of randomized and non-randomized clinical trials was 5 (0.5%); approximately half of the publications (51%) were descriptive studies; and the number of cohort (n=106, 10%) and cross-sectional analytical studies (n=108, 10%) was relatively low. Among the studies examined in terms of compliance with scientific reporting guidelines (n=218), the rate of compliance to the items of relevant checklists was 69% in randomized studies; 52% in cohort studies; 49% in cross-sectional analytical studies, and their average agreement scores were 0.71±0.45 in randomized studies; 0.53±0.49 in cohort studies; 0.51±0.49 in cross-sectional analytical studies. It has been concluded that additional efforts should be taken to improve the quality of studies in this field and their compliance with reporting guidelines.