Impact of Adding a Limitation Section in Abstract of Systematic Review

Impact of Adding a Limitation Section in Abstract of Systematic Review on Interpretation by Readers: a Randomised Controlled Trial

Objective: The investigators aim to evaluate the impact of a adding a " limitations " section in systematic review's abstract on result's interpretation by readers Design: randomized controlled trial with two parallel arms. Participants will be invited to participate in an online survey.

Participants: Eligible participants are corresponding authors of clinical trials published between 2010 and 2012 and referenced in Medline.

Intervention: The investigators will evaluate the impact of the presence of a " limitations " section in abstract of systematic review with meta- analysis. The investigators selected abstracts of meta-analysis from a sample.

Selected abstract will be standardised and the treatment's name hidden. Two groups of abstract will be presented as follow: 1) abstract without " limitations " section 2) abstract with " limitations " section. The " limitations " section will be written by authors and will briefly describe the risk of bias of included studies.

Selected participant are invited by e-mail to answer the survey. After reading one abstract from his/her group of randomisation they are invited to answer 5 questions about their interpretation of the results.

Inclusion Criteria:

• corresponding authors of clinical trail indexed in pubmed with email address available