Audit quality has improved because of changes introduced by Sarbanes-Oxley, a US audit body has said.

The US Centre for Audit Quality released a report this week showing that 78% of the 253 public company audit committee members surveyed by the Center rated overall audit quality as either ‘very good’ or ‘excellent.’

Eighty-two percent said it has improved somewhat or significantly in the past several years while a further 60% agreed that the risk of fraud had declined after the introduction of SOX in 2002, WebCPA.com reported.

Sixty-five percent of the respondents agreed that investors should have more confidence in the markets as a result of SOX, while 58% said that changes resulting from SOX had a positive impact.

The most common reasons given for the improvement includes increased audit committee oversight, requirements regarding internal controls, better communication with audit committees, more rigorous audits, increased emphasis on quality by auditors, and audit committee oversight of the auditors.