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Does journal endorsement of reporting guidelines influence the completeness of reporting of health research? A systematic review protocol.

ABSTRACT: Reporting of health research is often inadequate and incomplete. Complete and transparent reporting is imperative to enable readers to assess the validity of research findings for use in healthcare and policy decision-making. To this end, many guidelines, aimed at improving the quality of health research reports, have been developed for reporting a variety of research types. Despite efforts, many reporting guidelines are underused. In order to increase their uptake, evidence of their effectiveness is important and will provide authors, peer reviewers and editors with an important resource for use and implementation of pertinent guidance. The objective of this study was to assess whether endorsement of reporting guidelines by journals influences the completeness of reporting of health studies.Guidelines providing a minimum set of items to guide authors in reporting a specific type of research, developed with explicit methodology, and using a consensus process will be identified from an earlier systematic review and from the EQUATOR (Enhancing the QUAlity and Transparency Of health Research) Network's reporting guidelines library. MEDLINE, EMBASE, the Cochrane Methodology Register and Scopus will be searched for evaluations of those reporting guidelines; relevant evaluations from the recently conducted CONSORT systematic review will also be included. Single data extraction with 10% verification of study characteristics, 20% of outcomes and complete verification of aspects of study validity will be carried out. We will include evaluations of reporting guidelines that assess the completeness of reporting: (1) before and after journal endorsement, and/or (2) between endorsing and non-endorsing journals. For a given guideline, analyses will be conducted for individual and the total sum of items. When possible, standard, pooled effects with 99% confidence intervals using random effects models will be calculated.Evidence on which guidelines have been evaluated and which are associated with improved completeness of reporting is important for various stakeholders, including editors who consider which guidelines to endorse in their journal editorial policies.

SUBMITTER: Shamseer L

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3482392 | biostudies-literature | 2012 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Does journal endorsement of reporting guidelines influence the completeness of reporting of health research? A systematic review protocol.

Shamseer Larissa L Stevens Adrienne A Skidmore Becky B Turner Lucy L Altman Douglas G DG Hirst Allison A Hoey John J Palepu Anita A Simera Iveta I Schulz Kenneth K Moher David D

Systematic reviews 20120524

<h4>Background</h4>Reporting of health research is often inadequate and incomplete. Complete and transparent reporting is imperative to enable readers to assess the validity of research findings for use in healthcare and policy decision-making. To this end, many guidelines, aimed at improving the quality of health research reports, have been developed for reporting a variety of research types. Despite efforts, many reporting guidelines are underused. In order to increase their uptake, evidence o ...[more]

PMID: 22626029

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Project description:ObjectiveTo assess whether the completeness of reporting of health research is related to journals' endorsement of reporting guidelines.DesignSystematic review.Data sourcesReporting guidelines from a published systematic review and the EQUATOR Network (October 2011). Studies assessing the completeness of reporting by using an included reporting guideline (termed "evaluations") (1990 to October 2011; addendum searches in January 2012) from searches of either Medline, Embase, and the Cochrane Methodology Register or Scopus, depending on reporting guideline name.Study selectionEnglish language reporting guidelines that provided explicit guidance for reporting, described the guidance development process, and indicated use of a consensus development process were included. The CONSORT statement was excluded, as evaluations of adherence to CONSORT had previously been reviewed. English or French language evaluations of included reporting guidelines were eligible if they assessed the completeness of reporting of studies as a primary intent and those included studies enabled the comparisons of interest (that is, after versus before journal endorsement and/or endorsing versus non-endorsing journals).Data extractionPotentially eligible evaluations of included guidelines were screened initially by title and abstract and then as full text reports. If eligibility was unclear, authors of evaluations were contacted; journals' websites were consulted for endorsement information where needed. The completeness of reporting of reporting guidelines was analyzed in relation to endorsement by item and, where consistent with the authors' analysis, a mean summed score.Results101 reporting guidelines were included. Of 15,249 records retrieved from the search for evaluations, 26 evaluations that assessed completeness of reporting in relation to endorsement for nine reporting guidelines were identified. Of those, 13 evaluations assessing seven reporting guidelines (BMJ economic checklist, CONSORT for harms, PRISMA, QUOROM, STARD, STRICTA, and STROBE) could be analyzed. Reporting guideline items were assessed by few evaluations.ConclusionsThe completeness of reporting of only nine of 101 health research reporting guidelines (excluding CONSORT) has been evaluated in relation to journals' endorsement. Items from seven reporting guidelines were quantitatively analyzed, by few evaluations each. Insufficient evidence exists to determine the relation between journals' endorsement of reporting guidelines and the completeness of reporting of published health research reports. Journal editors and researchers should consider collaborative prospectively designed, controlled studies to provide more robust evidence.Systematic review registrationNot registered; no known register currently accepts protocols for methodology systematic reviews.

Project description:INTRODUCTION:There is evidence that the use of some reporting guidelines, such as the Consolidated Standards for Reporting Trials, is associated with improved completeness of reporting in health research. However, the current levels of adherence to reporting guidelines are suboptimal. Over the last few years, several actions aiming to improve compliance with reporting guidelines have been taken and proposed. We will conduct a scoping review of interventions to improve adherence to reporting guidelines in health research that have been evaluated or suggested, in order to inform future interventions. METHODS AND ANALYSIS:Our review will follow the Joanna Briggs Institute scoping review methods manual. We will search for relevant studies in MEDLINE, EMBASE and Cochrane Library databases. Moreover, we will carry out lateral searches from the reference lists of the included studies, as well as from the lists of articles citing the included ones. One reviewer will screen the full list, which will be randomly split into two halves and independently screened by the other two reviewers. Two reviewers will perform data extraction independently. Discrepancies will be solved through discussion. In addition, this search strategy will be supplemented by a grey literature search. The interventions found will be classified as assessed or suggested, as well as according to different criteria, in relation to their target (journal policies, journal editors, authors, reviewers, funders, ethical boards or others) or the research stage at which they are performed (design, conducting, reporting or peer review). Descriptive statistical analysis will be performed. ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION:A paper summarising the findings from this review will be published in a peer-reviewed journal. This scoping review will contribute to a better understanding and a broader perspective on how the problem of adhering better to reporting guidelines has been tackled so far. This could be a major first step towards developing future strategies to improve compliance with reporting guidelines in health research.

Project description:BackgroundComplete reporting is essential for clinical research. However, the endorsement of reporting guidelines in radiological journals is still unclear. Further, as a field extensively utilizing artificial intelligence (AI), the adoption of both general and AI reporting guidelines would be necessary for enhancing quality and transparency of radiological research. This study aims to investigate the endorsement of general reporting guidelines and those for AI applications in medical imaging in radiological journals, and explore associated journal characteristic variables.MethodsThis meta-research study screened journals from the Radiology, Nuclear Medicine & Medical Imaging category, Science Citation Index Expanded of the 2022 Journal Citation Reports, and excluded journals not publishing original research, in non-English languages, and instructions for authors unavailable. The endorsement of fifteen general reporting guidelines and ten AI reporting guidelines was rated using a five-level tool: "active strong", "active weak", "passive moderate", "passive weak", and "none". The association between endorsement and journal characteristic variables was evaluated by logistic regression analysis.ResultsWe included 117 journals. The top-five endorsed reporting guidelines were CONSORT (Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials, 58.1%, 68/117), PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses, 54.7%, 64/117), STROBE (STrengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology, 51.3%, 60/117), STARD (Standards for Reporting of Diagnostic Accuracy, 50.4%, 59/117), and ARRIVE (Animal Research Reporting of In Vivo Experiments, 35.9%, 42/117). The most implemented AI reporting guideline was CLAIM (Checklist for Artificial Intelligence in Medical Imaging, 1.7%, 2/117), while other nine AI reporting guidelines were not mentioned. The Journal Impact Factor quartile and publisher were associated with endorsement of reporting guidelines in radiological journals.ConclusionsThe general reporting guideline endorsement was suboptimal in radiological journals. The implementation of reporting guidelines for AI applications in medical imaging was extremely low. Their adoption should be strengthened to facilitate quality and transparency of radiological study reporting.

Project description:INTRODUCTION:Transparency and completeness of health research is highly variable, with important deficiencies in the reporting of methods and results of studies. Reporting guidelines aim to improve transparency and quality of research reports, and are often developed by consortia of journal editors, peer reviewers, authors, consumers and other key stakeholders. The objective of this study will be to investigate the characteristics of scientific collaboration among developers and the citation metrics of reporting guidelines of health research. METHODS AND ANALYSIS:This is the study protocol for a cross-sectional analysis of completed reporting guidelines indexed in the Enhancing the QUAlity and Transparency Of health Research Network Library. We will search PubMed/MEDLINE and the Web of Science. Screening, selection and data abstraction will be conducted by one researcher and verified by a second researcher. Potential discrepancies will be resolved via discussion. We will include published papers of reporting guidelines written in English. Published papers will have to meet the definition of a reporting guideline related to health research (eg, a checklist, flow diagram or explicit text), with no restrictions by study design, medical specialty, disease or condition. Raw data from each included paper (including title, publication year, journal, subject category, keywords, citations, and the authors' names, author's affiliated institution and country) will be exported from the Web of Science. Descriptive analyses will be conducted (including the number of papers, citations, authors, countries, journals, keywords and main collaboration metrics). We will identify the most prolific authors, institutions, countries, journals and the most cited papers. Network analyses will be carried out to study the structure of collaborations. ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION:No ethical approval will be required. Findings from this study will be published in peer-reviewed journals. All data will be deposited in a cross-disciplinary public repository. It is anticipated the study findings could be relevant to a variety of audiences.

Project description:Background:Despite the widespread use of antibodies as a research tool, problems with specificity, lot-to-lot consistency and sensitivity commonly occur and may be important contributing factors to the 'replication crisis' in biomedical research. This makes the validation of antibodies and accurate reporting of this validation in the scientific literature extremely important. Therefore, some journals now require authors to comply with antibody reporting guidelines. Methods:We used a quasi-experimental approach to assess the effectiveness of such journal guidelines in improving antibody reporting in the scientific literature. In a sample of 120 publications, we compared the reporting of antibody validation and identification information in two journals with guidelines (Nature and the Journal of Comparative Neurology) with two journals without guidelines (Science and Neuroscience), before and after the introduction of these guidelines. Results:Our results suggest that the implementation of antibody reporting guidelines might have some influence on the reporting of antibody validation information. The percentage of validated antibodies per article slightly increased from 39% to 57% in journals with guidelines, whereas this percentage decreased from 23% to 14% in journals without guidelines. Furthermore, the reporting of validation information of all primary antibodies increased by 23 percentage points in the journals with guidelines (OR = 2.80, 95% CI = 0.96-INF; adjusted p = 1, one-tailed), compared to a decrease of 13 percentage points in journals without guidelines. Fortunately, the guidelines seem to be more effective in improving the reporting of antibody identification information. The reporting of identification information of all primary antibodies used in a study increased by 58 percentage points (OR = 17.8, 95% CI = 4.8-INF; adjusted p = 0.0003, one-tailed) in journals with guidelines. This percentage also slightly increased in journals without guidelines (by 18 percentage points), suggesting an overall increased awareness of the importance of antibody identifiability. Moreover, this suggests that reporting guidelines mostly have an influence on the reporting of information that is relatively easy to provide. A small increase in the reporting of validation by referencing the scientific literature or the manufacturer's data also indicates this. Conclusion:Combined with the results of previous studies on journal guidelines, our study suggests that the effect of journal antibody guidelines on validation practices by themselves may be limited, since they mostly seem to improve antibody identification instead of actual experimental validation. These guidelines, therefore, may require additional measures to ensure effective implementation. However, due to the explorative nature of our study and our small sample size, we must remain cautious towards other factors that might have played a role in the observed change in antibody reporting behaviour.

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Does journal endorsement of reporting guidelines influence the completeness of reporting of health research? A systematic review protocol.

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Does journal endorsement of reporting guidelines influence the completeness of reporting of health research? A systematic review protocol.

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