A systematic scoping review of adherence to reporting guidelines in health care literature

Abstract

BackgroundReporting guidelines have been available for the past 17 years since the inception of the Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials statement in 1996. These guidelines were developed to improve the quality of reporting of studies in medical literature. Despite the widespread availability of these guidelines, the quality of reporting of medical literature remained suboptimal. In this study, we assess the current adherence practice to reporting guidelines; determine key factors associated with better adherence to these guidelines; and provide recommendations to enhance adherence to reporting guidelines for future studies.MethodsWe undertook a systematic scoping review of systematic reviews of adherence to reporting guidelines across different clinical areas and study designs. We searched four electronic databases (Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature, Web of Science, Embase, and Medline) from January 1996 to September 2012. Studies were included if they addressed adherence to one of the following guidelines: Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials (CONSORT), Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA), Quality of Reporting of Meta-analysis (QUOROM), Transparent Reporting of Evaluations with Nonrandomized Designs (TREND), Meta-analysis Of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (MOOSE) and Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (STROBE). A protocol for this study was devised. A literature search, data extraction, and quality assessment were performed independently by two authors in duplicate. This study reporting follows the PRISMA guidelines.ResultsOur search retrieved 5159 titles, of which 50 were eligible. Overall, 86.0% of studies reported suboptimal levels of adherence to reporting guidelines. Factors associated with better adherence included journal impact factor and endorsement of guidelines, publication date, funding source, multisite studies, pharmacological interventions and larger studies.ConclusionReporting guidelines in the clinical literature are important to improve the standards of reporting of clinical studies; however, adherence to these guidelines remains suboptimal. Action is therefore needed to enhance the adherence to these standards. Strategies to enhance adherence include journal editorial policies endorsing these guidelines.

Methods and processes for development of a CONSORT extension for reporting pilot randomized controlled trials

“…We will continue to engage other journal editors and publishers to ensure wider awareness and endorsement of our guideline upon their completion. It has been shown that formal endorsement of a guideline by journals is a strong determinant of its adoption and subsequent adherence to it [27]. …”

Testosterone suppression in opioid users: A systematic review and meta-analysis

“…The majority of studies were performed between 1980 and 2000, when standards for reporting studies were different than today. After the introduction of the Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials (CONSORT) statement and later its multiple extensions in 1996, as well as the gradual uptake of these statements by journals, reporting standards have improved (Samaan et al, 2013). However, important pieces of information related to methodology, statistics, or outcome measurements remain unknown in older studies included in this review, thus impacting the quality assessment.…”

State of reporting of primary biomedical research: a scoping review protocol

“…We will present our results as three parts, where the first part of adherence to reporting guidelines is an updated and expanded research based on our previous work. 11 In contrast, for the other parts of inconsistency between protocols or registrations and full reports and discrepancy between abstracts and full reports, no study summarising all the best current evidence in multidisciplines is available. Unlike the individual systematic review and survey that reports confirmatory point estimates in a specific area or disease or in a group of journals, 13 16 17 30 our scoping review will show the general mapping for the state of reporting in the overall primary biomedical research.…”

“…For the first part, we will build on previous work on adherence to reporting guidelines which was limited to six guidelines for human studies and up to 2012. 11 Our previous work will be expanded, updated and included in this scoping review.…”