Critical Appraisal of Reporting Quality of Case-Control Articles Indexed in SID Website Based on STROBE Statement

The STROBE (strengthening the reporting of observational studies in epidemiology) statement presents recommendations to improve the reporting of observational studies. This study aimed to evaluate the quality of reporting the case-control articles indexed in the Scientific Information Database (SID). This descriptive study was conducted in 2016 in the all case-control articles indexed in the SID website over a 10-year period (2006 to 2015). The researchers visited the SID website and used the keywords of case and control in titles or keywords of the articles. Then, the STROBE checklist was completed for each article. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics. The first item of the checklist was observed in 100% of the studied articles. None of these articles had described duration of exposure and how missing data were addressed. None of these articles had used the flowchart. The quality of reporting in studied articles was acceptable, but some of the items in the STROBE checklist need more attention.