Guidelines for reporting health care research: advancing the clarity and transparency of scientific reporting.

摘要

Despite the expensive and often highly competitive real estate in health care journals, two major publications have introduced new sections in their respective journals within the last few months, i.e., PLoS Medicine"...guidelines and guidance in PLoS medicine" and the BMJ "Research methods and reporting". The new sections focus, to some extent, on ways to improve the quality of reporting health research. These intellectual investments emerge as ongoing concern continues about inadequately reported health research. Beyond the practical difficulties faced by readers who try to interpret incomplete research reporting, there is growing evidence as to the magnitude of inadequate reporting. Chan et al. compared 48 protocols of randomized trials that were funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and their 68 associated publications. More than one in every three (40%) primary outcomes differed between the protocol and full publication, and statistically positive efficacy outcomes were more likely to be reported than non-significant efficacy outcomes (odds ratio = 2.7).