Identification and description of clinical trials published in internal and general medicine Spanish journals in 1971-1995

BACKGROUND: When faced with a therapeutic issue, the practice of evidence-b ased medicine requires efficient access to information derived from control led clinical trials. The objectives of the study were to locate, with the g reatest possible exhaustivity, all controlled clinical trials published in Spanish journals of general medicine, between 1971 and 1995 (25 years), to characterize them, and to incorporate them into the worldwide database of c linical trials maintained by the Cochrane Collaboration, METHODS: The controlled clinical trials have been identified by a systemati c, manual review of all the Spanish journals of general and internal medici ne. The results obtained have been compared with an exclusive electronic se arch in MEDLINE. A descriptive analysis of the characteristics of the local ized controlled clinical trials was done. RESULTS: 68 journals of general and internal medicine have been identified, only 6 being indexed in MEDLINE. A search carried out exclusively using ME DLINE would imply the loss of one third of all controlled clinical trials. About 16 controlled clinical trials per year have been published in Spain i n the area of general and internal medicine, most of them with important mi ssing information. CONCLUSIONS: The limitations of searching only in MEDLINE have been shown o nce again. There are few controlled clinical trials published in Spain in t he area of general and internal medicine, and in order to improve their qua lity and their diffusion is recommended that authors and editors adhered to the international consensus initiatives that are under way.