Critical analysis of the reporting quality of case reports focusing on dental traumatology using the Preferred Reporting Items for Case reports in Endodontics 2020 checklist: A baseline evaluation prior to checklist publication

The Preferred Reporting Items for Case Reports in Endodontics (PRICE) 2020 guidelines were published to help authors produce high-quality case reports. The aim of this study was to use the PRICE 2020 guidelines to appraise a sample of 50 case reports related to dental traumatology that were published before the guidelines were available in order to assess various parameters influencing the reporting quality. Fifty case reports published between 2015 and 2019 and related to dental traumatology were randomly selected from the PubMed database. Reports were assessed by two independent evaluators using the PRICE checklist. Each item received a score of "1" if the manuscript met all pertinent criteria, "0" if it was not reported, and "0.5" if it was reported insufficiently. "Not Applicable" (NA) was assigned to items that were irrelevant to a specific report. The estimated total PRICE score for each case report was computed by adding all the scores, with a maximum score of 47 minus any "NA" scores. Descriptive and Inferential statistics (Student's t-test and ANOVA) were used for analysis. The percentage of case reports that fully met each applicable criteria ranged from 0% to 100%. The percentage of case reports partially satisfying each applicable criterion varied from 0% to 88%. There was a significant difference in scores for case reports published in journals with an impact factor compared with those without (p = .042). No significant difference was observed between the mean scores that compared the period of publication. There was no significant difference between journals that followed the CARE guidelines and those that did not. Several items within the PRICE 2020 guidelines were either not reported or only partially reported in case reports related to dental traumatology prior to the checklist publication. It is recommended that authors follow the PRICE 2020 guidelines to improve the overall quality of their case reports.