“Only 50% of randomized trials have high level of confdence in arthroscopy and sports medicine”—a spin‐based assessment

Abstract
Purpose Pioneering works on the quality appraisal of RCTs have recognized and addressed most of the issues that afect
the RCT quality but some issues such as “Writers’ bias” or “Spin” are yet to be sorted out. Spin, particularly in the abstracts,
is a potential source of deception to the readers. The purpose of this study is to grade the RCTs of arthroscopy and sports
medicine based on a spin in their abstracts, analyze the prevalence of spin, and explore methods to remove spin.
Methods 250 recent RCTs from the top 5 arthroscopy and sports medicine journals were selected. Baseline data of the
articles were collected. Consort Adherence Score (CAS) was calculated. The abstracts of the RCTs were graded using the
Level Of Confdence (LOC) grading tool developed by the Orthopaedic Research Group. The association of the spin grade
with other characteristics of the articles was analyzed.
Results The median CAS for the included studies was 9 (IQR 8–10). It was found that only 49.6% (n=124) articles had high
LOC with no or one non-critical spin in the abstract. 20.8% (n=52) had Moderate LOC with more than one non-critical
spin. 19.6% (n=49) had at least one critical spin and 10% (n=25) had more than one critical faw making their results have
Low and Critically Low LOC, respectively. Of the ten variables analyzed in multivariate regression analysis, it was found
that CAS was the only signifcant factor that determines the level of confdence in the abstract of RCTs
Conclusion Spin is prevalent in abstracts of sports medicine and arthroscopy journals with 50.4% having some form of spin.
Grading the LOC of the RCTs based on spin is the necessity of the day for the readers. Only 49.6% of the RCTs had high
LOC. Objective structuring of the abstracts would help eliminate spin in the future.