Strengths and Limitations
This review is the first published report detailing reporting standards relating to intervention description, standardisation, adherence and expertise in AVB trials. The search strategy was wide and RCTs with a non-device comparator arm were also included. The review therefore provides a detailed inspection of reporting standards to provide an informative narrative to explain the reporting quality. Despite this, however, there are limitations. We only retrieved protocols or associated documents from authors specifically mentioning or referencing these within the trial report, so some may have been missed. Additionally, the majority of papers lacked methodological robustness, making it hard to relate positive findings to the wider research community. Finally, only eight papers were published after the release of the CONSORT-NPT guidelines in 2008. This is a key limitation as we were comparing papers to standards that were not available to the majority of authors at the time of publication. The present review however does highlight that the poor quality of reporting standards is constant, with no noticeable overall change in reporting quality since the introduction of these guidelines. The reasons for the lack of guideline adoption is likely to be multifactorial, relating to unclear, non-specific definitions and instructions, a lack of awareness amongst clinicians and trialists, and the lack of specificity of these guidelines towards interventions involving the use of devices.