Objective To investigate the number of Chinese clinical trials and the completeness of registered information on the source of their funding.
Methods We searched the five primary registers in the World Health Organization’s International Clinical Trial Registration Platform to identify Chinese clinical trials, calculated the number Chinese clinical trials with specific funding and evaluated the completeness of the information on the source of this funding.
Results We identified 383 registered Chinese clinical trials, of which 219 (27 trials per year on average) were registered in clinicaltrials.gov, 94 in the Chinese Clinical Trial Register Center (113 per year on average), 62 in controlled-trials.com (12.4 per year on average) and 8 (1.6 per year on average) in the Australian and New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry. 360 trials had some information on their source of funding: 230 from the mainland of China (62 funded by colleges/universities, 47 by national/local organizations, 47 by the Ministry of Science and Technology, 34 by hospitals, 28 by commercial organizations, 9 by international foundations, and 3 by the Ministry of Health), 117 from Hongkong and 13 from Taiwan. The information in the registers on the source of funding was incomplete.
Conclusion The number of funded Chinese clinical trials in these registers is too small. The registrations should be improved to improve the completeness of information on the source of funding. It is important to disseminate the importance of registering clinical trials and doing so in a local register to promote the transparency and accessibility of trial registration.
Citation： LIU Xuemei,LI Youping,WU Taixiang,LIU Guanjian,LI Jing. A Survey of the Status of Funding of Registered Chinese Clinical Trials. Chinese Journal of Evidence-Based Medicine, 2008, 08(5): 305-311. doi: 10.7507/1672-2531.20080069 Copy