Abstract
Manuscripts and abstracts from biomedical journals frequently do not contain proper information for meeting required standards and serving the multiple needs of their end users. Reporting guidelines and checklists help researchers to meet those standards by providing rules or principles for specific research areas. Rheumatology research includes a broad range of heterogeneous research areas, each with its own requirements, producing several distinct categories of articles. Our objectives with this article are to raise awareness of the existence and importance of reporting guidelines, to present a structured overview of reporting guidelines that rheumatology journals could apply, and to encourage their use by journal authors, editors, and reviewers, including those of Arthritis Research & Therapy. Internationally recognized reporting guidelines exist for a diversity of research areas. We encourage colleagues to consult the 'Enhancing the QUAlity and Transparency Of health Research' (EQUATOR) network when writing scientific papers. EQUATOR is an international initiative that seeks to improve the reliability and value of biomedical research literature by promoting transparent and accurate reporting of studies. We propose specific reporting guidelines for a number of study designs: animal research, randomized trials, reliability and agreement studies, systematic reviews with and without meta-analyses, diagnostic test accuracy studies, and also observational research including cross-sectional, cohort, and case-control studies. We encourage authors, editors, and reviewers to adhere to and enforce the use of the appropriate guidelines when writing, reading, and reviewing scientific papers.
Highlights
Quite often, research reports and abstracts do not contain proper information for meeting required standards and serving the multiple needs of their end users [1], be they researchers or health care providers
Most trialists and many research managers know the advantages associated with using the CONSORT (CONsolidated Standards Of Reporting Trials) statement when writing a scientific paper
*Correspondence: Robin.Christensen@Frh.Regionh.DK 1The Parker Institute, Department of Rheumatology, Copenhagen University Hospital, Frederiksberg, Copenhagen F, Denmark Full list of author information is available at the end of the article. The objectives of this commentary are to raise awareness of the existence and importance of reporting guidelines within the various areas of research and to present them in a structured overview so that journal authors, editors, and reviewers - including those of Arthritis Research & Therapy - might more apply them
Summary
Research reports and abstracts do not contain proper information for meeting required standards and serving the multiple needs of their end users [1], be they researchers or health care providers. The objectives of this commentary are to raise awareness of the existence and importance of reporting guidelines within the various areas of research and to present them in a structured overview so that journal authors, editors, and reviewers - including those of Arthritis Research & Therapy - might more apply them. ARRIVE, Animals in Research Reporting In Vivo Experiments; CONSORT, CONsolidated Standards Of Reporting Trials; GRRAS, Guidelines for Reporting Reliability and Agreement Studies; PRISMA, Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses; STARD, Standards for Reporting of Diagnostic Accuracy; STROBE, Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology. The ARRIVE guidelines consist of a checklist of 20 items describing the minimum information that all scientific publications reporting research using animals should include [15]. Research in human biospecimens should follow the recommendations from BRISQ (Biospecimen Reporting for Improved Study Quality), which aims at improving the quality of research that uses human tissues subjected to collection, processing, and storage; it is crucial that information on the handling of biospecimens be reported in a thorough, accurate, and standardized manner [17]
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