The Methodological Quality of NSFC-Funded Animal Experiments in The Field of Traditional Chinese Medicine Published in Chinese Journals: A Retrospective Study

Objective To provide references for the design and implementation of follow-up animal experiments and finally promote the transformation and utilization of its results, we made a retrospective analysis entirely of the quality of animal experiment methods and the existing problems in NSFC-funded Chinese medicine field by means of SYRCLE bias risk tool. Methods Four independent researchers extracted the data and cross-checked. Chi-square test were used for comparison between groups, and level of test was α=0.05. Results The final results include 971 researches in which the proportion of researches that weren't cited was 50.8%. The proportion of general program（57.0%,553/971） and H27 （32%, 316/971） were the highest in the funding categories and disciplines. Based on the results, we can see a majority of the sub-entries （68.2%, 15/22） are below 60% of the “low risk” compliance rate, and even 73.3% （11/15） of the sub-entries are below 10%. Besides, with the publication of the SYRCLE bias risk tool, a majority of the sub-entries have not been improved at the “low risk” compliance rate（P>0.05）. Conclusions Our result show that the quality of animal methods in NSFC-funded Chinese medicine field is low, and the methodological quality has not been improved with the publication of SYRCLE bias risk tool.