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Abstract
Poor research reporting is a major contributing factor to low study reproducibility, financial and animal waste. The ARRIVE (Animal Research: Reporting of In Vivo Experiments) guidelines were developed to improve reporting quality and many journals support these guidelines. The influence of this support is unknown. We hypothesized that papers published in journals supporting the ARRIVE guidelines would show improved reporting compared with those in non-supporting journals. In a retrospective, observational cohort study, papers from 5 ARRIVE supporting (SUPP) and 2 non-supporting (nonSUPP) journals, published before (2009) and 5 years after (2015) the ARRIVE guidelines, were selected. Adherence to the ARRIVE checklist of 20 items was independently evaluated by two reviewers and items assessed as fully, partially or not reported. Mean percentages of items reported were compared between journal types and years with an unequal variance t-test. Individual items and sub-items were compared with a chi-square test. From an initial cohort of 956, 236 papers were included: 120 from 2009 (SUPP; n = 52, nonSUPP; n = 68), 116 from 2015 (SUPP; n = 61, nonSUPP; n = 55). The percentage of fully reported items was similar between journal types in 2009 (SUPP: 55.3 ± 11.5% [SD]; nonSUPP: 51.8 ± 9.0%; p = 0.07, 95% CI of mean difference -0.3–7.3%) and 2015 (SUPP: 60.5 ± 11.2%; nonSUPP; 60.2 ± 10.0%; p = 0.89, 95%CI -3.6–4.2%). The small increase in fully reported items between years was similar for both journal types (p = 0.09, 95% CI -0.5–4.3%). No paper fully reported 100% of items on the ARRIVE checklist and measures associated with bias were poorly reported. These results suggest that journal support for the ARRIVE guidelines has not resulted in a meaningful improvement in reporting quality, contributing to ongoing waste in animal research.
Highlights
Accurate and complete reporting of animal experiments is central to supporting valid, reproducible research and to allow readers to critically evaluate published work
Journals were categorized as ARRIVE supporters (SUPP) or non-supporters based on whether the ARRIVE guidelines were mentioned in their instructions to authors when beginning the study (November 2016)
N = total number of papers where the item was applicable. n = total number of papers reporting the item. p values are for comparisons between years for each journal type
Summary
Accurate and complete reporting of animal experiments is central to supporting valid, reproducible research and to allow readers to critically evaluate published work. To address low standards of reporting, the ARRIVE (Animals in Research: Reporting In Vivo Experiments) guidelines for reporting were published in 2010 [5, 6]. The ARRIVE guidelines are summarized by a 20 item checklist that includes reporting of measures associated with bias (randomization, blinding, sample size calculation, data handling) [7, 8]. Over 1000 journals have responded to publication of the guidelines by linking to it on their websites and in their instructions to authors [9]. The effect of these endorsements is unknown.
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