Methodological Quality of Experimental Stroke Studies Published in the Stroke Journal

High Appraisal of Methodological Quality of Basic Science Articles Published in Stroke

“…These positive findings support an earlier analysis made from basic science articles published in Stroke before and after the implementation of the Basic Science Checklist (first introduced in 2011, 5 updated in 2016 6 ). The use of the checklist tool led to an increased reporting of inclusion and exclusion criteria definition, allocation concealment, and blinding and showed an increase of studies with the highest quality category of the checklist item sum score compared with the period before where no checklist existed.…”

“…The use of the checklist tool led to an increased reporting of inclusion and exclusion criteria definition, allocation concealment, and blinding and showed an increase of studies with the highest quality category of the checklist item sum score compared with the period before where no checklist existed. 5 An interesting question is certainly whether these improvements were because of the journal editorial policy or may even reflect a change in research practice in the basic science stroke community. A post hoc analysis by Ramirez et al 4 came to the conclusion that it is likely a combination of both: Stroke uniquely showed improvements in all study design elements even after adjusting for cardiovascular disorder studied and animal model used, but stroke as the cardiovascular disorder studied was identified as an independent predictor for at least one study design element for every journal examined.…”

New Initiatives to Improve the Rigor and Reproducibility of Articles Published in Circulation Research

“…These documents are modifications of similar documents that were recently implemented by Stroke 3 and have resulted in improved adherence to standards of rigor. 7,14 The short checklist (Table 1) is relatively simple and covers the basic methodological aspects that are considered essential to the validity of the work: description of animals used, use of randomization, use of blinding, specification of inclusion and exclusion criteria and whether such criteria were established a priori, reporting of animals excluded, and description of statistical methods. The long checklist (Table 2) is much more detailed, providing information that enables in-depth evaluation of the level of rigor (and, therefore, robustness) of the study.…”

“…By examining the long checklist, readers will be able to assess for themselves the strengths and weaknesses of the study and how robust the data and conclusions are. The long checklist is accompanied by an explanatory document (Table 3), modeled after that used by Stroke, 3,14 which clarifies the standards of rigor outlined in the checklist and assists the authors in reporting them. We have elected to use 2 checklists because most articles submitted to Circulation Research are rejected at first submission; thus, requiring detailed information for every article that is submitted would be unnecessarily burdensome for the authors.…”

Checklists and Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes

“…For several years now, the journal Stroke has made use of a basic science checklist as part of their review process, which they have recently expanded. 9 More recently, Circulation Research has begun a similar process for their articles, including different types of checklists for various categories of research. 10 The rest of the American Heart Association journals, including Circulation, will soon follow for their basic science articles.…”