Evidence Based Social Science in China Paper 3: The quality of social science RCTs published from 2000–2020

Objective This study collected randomized controlled trials (RCTs) published in the social sciences in China and assessed their risk of bias and reporting quality. Study Design and Setting Three databases were systematically searched for publications from January 2000 to June 2020 for RCTs in the social sciences published by Chinese researchers. The risk of bias was assessed using the Cochrane Collaboration Risk of Bias Tool (CCRBT), and reporting quality was assessed using the Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials for Social and Psychological Interventions (CONSORT-SPI). Results A total of 316 RCTs were identified, including 204 articles in English and 112 articles in Chinese. The most frequently researched interventions focused on education (33.9%), and the most frequently studied population were students (32.9%). Eighty-seven percent of RCTs had intermediate reporting quality. Twenty-four of the 43 CONSORT-SPI sub-items had a compliance rate of less than 50%. Most RCTs had an unclear risk of bias for blinding outcome assessors (84.5%), blinding participants and personnel (82.9%), allocation concealment (73.1%), and random sequence generation (68.0%). A low proportion of CONSORT-SPI items were reported and, high proportion of the papers had unclear risk of bias. Conclusion The quality and reporting of RCTs in the social sciences needs improvement in China, especially for reporting methods and results. Most studies had an unclear risk of bias as they lacked important methodological information.