To the Editor: In a study of 6 large general
medical journals, including JAMA, we found 18% to 68% of abstracts had either
inconsistencies in data between the abstract and the body of the article or
data given in the abstract that could not be found in the body of the article
at all.1 In response, JAMA introduced
a quality improvement initiative, effective January 1, 1998, to improve the
quality of its abstracts.2 We assessed
the effectiveness of the initiative using a masked analysis of samples from
before and after the intervention.