Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

Endorsement of reporting guidelines and clinical trial registration across Scopus-indexed rheumatology journals: a cross-sectional analysis

  • Observational Research
  • Published:
Rheumatology International Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the instructions for authors of rheumatology journals and analyze their endorsement of reporting guidelines and clinical trial registration. Sixty rheumatology journals were selected by a research librarian and an investigator through the 2021 Scopus CiteScore tool. The instructions for authors’ subsection of each journal was assessed to determine endorsement of study design-specific reporting guidelines or clinical trial registration. Descriptive statistics were calculated using R (version 4.2.1) and RStudio. Of the 58 journals analyzed, 34 (34/58; 59%) mentioned the EQUATOR Network: an online compendium of best practice reporting guidelines. The most commonly mentioned reporting guidelines were CONSORT with 44 journals (44/58; 75%), and PRISMA with 35 journals (35/58; 60%). The least mentioned guidelines were QUOROM with 56 journals not mentioning the guideline (56/58; 97%), and SRQR with 53 journals not mentioning the guideline (53/57, 93%). Clinical trial registration was required by 38 journals (38/58; 66%) and recommended by 8 journals (8/58; 14%). Our study found that endorsement of reporting guidelines and clinical trial registration within rheumatology journals was suboptimal with great room for improvement. Endorsement of reporting guidelines have shown to not only mitigate bias, but also improve research methodologies. Therefore, we recommend rheumatology journals broadly expand their endorsement of reporting guidelines and clinical trial registration to improve the quality of evidence they publish.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Barbour KE, Helmick CG, Boring M, Brady TJ (2017) Vital signs: prevalence of doctor-diagnosed arthritis and arthritis-attributable activity limitation—United States, 2013–2015. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep 66:246–253

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  2. Mariotto AB, Robin Yabroff K, Shao Y, Feuer EJ, Brown ML (2011) Projections of the cost of cancer care in the United States: 2010–2020. J Natl Cancer Inst 103:117–128

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  3. Hresko A, Lin T-C, Solomon DH (2018) Medical care costs associated with rheumatoid arthritis in the US: a systematic literature review and meta-analysis. Arthritis Care Res 70:1431–1438

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Access anytime anywhere. In: Cleveland Clinic [Internet]. [cited 5 May 2023]. Available: http://clevelandclinic.org

  5. Young A, Dixey J, Kulinskaya E, Cox N, Davies P, Devlin J et al (2002) Which patients stop working because of rheumatoid arthritis? Results of five years’ follow up in 732 patients from the Early RA Study (ERAS). Ann Rheum Dis 61:335–340

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  6. Cook DM, Boyd EA, Grossmann C, Bero LA (2007) Reporting science and conflicts of interest in the lay press. PLoS ONE 2:e1266

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  7. Simera I, Moher D, Hirst A, Hoey J, Schulz KF, Altman DG (2010) Transparent and accurate reporting increases reliability, utility, and impact of your research: reporting guidelines and the EQUATOR Network. BMC Med 8:24

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  8. Simera I, Moher D, Hoey J, Schulz KF, Altman DG (2009) The EQUATOR Network and reporting guidelines: Helping to achieve high standards in reporting health research studies. Maturitas 63:4–6

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  9. Catalá-López F, Alonso-Arroyo A, Page MJ, Hutton B, Ridao M, Tabarés-Seisdedos R et al (2019) Reporting guidelines for health research: protocol for a cross-sectional analysis of the EQUATOR Network Library. BMJ Open 9:e022769

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  10. EQUATOR Network. [cited 3 Jan 2023]. Available: https://www.equator-network.org/

  11. Sims MT, Bowers AM, Fernan JM, Dormire KD, Herrington JM, Vassar M (2018) Trial registration and adherence to reporting guidelines in cardiovascular journals. Heart 104:753–759

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  12. Checketts JX, Sims MT, Detweiler B, Middlemist K, Jones J, Vassar M (2018) An evaluation of reporting guidelines and clinical trial registry requirements among orthopaedic surgery journals. J Bone Joint Surg Am 100:e15

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  13. Frost AD, Hróbjartsson A, Nejstgaard CH (2022) Adherence to the PRISMA-P 2015 reporting guideline was inadequate in systematic review protocols. J Clin Epidemiol 150:179–187

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  14. Plint AC, Moher D, Morrison A, Schulz K, Altman DG, Hill C et al (2006) Does the CONSORT checklist improve the quality of reports of randomised controlled trials? A systematic review. Med J Aust 185:263–267

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  15. Viergever RF, Karam G, Reis A, Ghersi D (2014) The quality of registration of clinical trials: still a problem. PLoS ONE 9:e84727

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  16. ICMJE. [cited 4 Jan 2023]. Available: https://www.icmje.org/recommendations/browse/publishing-and-editorial-issues/clinical-trial-registration.html

  17. Sims MT, Henning NM, Wayant CC, Vassar M (2016) Do emergency medicine journals promote trial registration and adherence to reporting guidelines? A survey of “Instructions for Authors.” Scand J Trauma Resusc Emerg Med 24:137

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  18. Cooper CM, Gray H, Barcenas L, Torgerson T, Checketts JX, Vassar M (2020) An Evaluation of reporting guidelines and clinical trial registry requirements among addiction medicine journals. J Am Osteopath Assoc 120:823–830

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  19. Reveiz L, Villanueva E, Iko C, Simera I (2013) Compliance with clinical trial registration and reporting guidelines by Latin American and Caribbean journals. Cad Saude Publica 29:1095–1100

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  20. Marušić A, Gasparyan AY, Kitas GD (2013) Promoting transparent and accurate reporting of research studies in rheumatology: endorsement of reporting guidelines in rheumatology journals. Semin Arthritis Rheum 43:288–291

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  21. Christensen R, Bliddal H, Henriksen M (2013) Enhancing the reporting and transparency of rheumatology research: a guide to reporting guidelines. Arthritis Res Ther 15:109

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  22. STROBE. In: STROBE [Internet]. [cited 9 Aug 2023]. Available: https://www.strobe-statement.org/

  23. Baas J, Schotten M, Plume A, Côté G, Karimi R (2020) Scopus as a curated, high-quality bibliometric data source for academic research in quantitative science studies. Quant Sci Stud 1:377–386

    Article  Google Scholar 

  24. Google Translate. [cited 4 Jan 2023]. Available: https://translate.google.com/

  25. Jackson JL, Kuriyama A, Anton A, Choi A, Fournier J-P, Geier A-K et al (2019) The accuracy of google translate for abstracting data from non–english-language trials for systematic reviews. Ann Intern Med 171:677–679

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  26. Hoddinott SN, Bass MJ (1986) The dillman total design survey method. Can Fam Physician 32:2366–2368

    CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  27. OSF. [cited 29 Aug 2023]. Available: https://osf.io/wrtke/files/osfstorage

  28. Tao K-M, Li X-Q, Zhou Q-H, Moher D, Ling C-Q, Yu W-F (2011) From QUOROM to PRISMA: a survey of high-impact medical journals’ instructions to authors and a review of systematic reviews in anesthesia literature. PLoS ONE 6:e27611

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  29. Harvey LA (2017) Trial registration: a pre-requisite for publication and an ethical responsibility. Spinal Cord 55:329–330

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  30. Aslam A, Imanullah S, Asim M, El-Menyar A (2013) Registration of clinical trials: is it really needed? N Am J Med Sci 5:713–715

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  31. Barajas-Ochoa A, Cisneros-Barrios A, Ramirez-Trejo M, Ramos-Remus C (2023) The use of reporting guidelines in rheumatology: a cross-sectional study of over 850 manuscripts published in 5 major rheumatology journals. J Rheumatol. https://doi.org/10.3899/jrheum.221028

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  32. Hirst A, Altman DG (2012) Are peer reviewers encouraged to use reporting guidelines? A survey of 116 health research journals. PLoS ONE 7:e35621

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  33. Pandis N, Fedorowicz Z. The international EQUATOR network: enhancing the quality and transparency of health care research. J Appl Oral Sci. 2011;19: 0.

  34. Viergever RF, Li K (2015) Trends in global clinical trial registration: an analysis of numbers of registered clinical trials in different parts of the world from 2004 to 2013. BMJ Open 5:e008932

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  35. National Library of Medicine (U.S.), National Institutes of Health (U.S.). ClinicalTrials.gov. National Library of Medicine; 1999.

  36. Zhou J, Li J, Zhang J, Geng B, Chen Y, Zhou X (2022) The relationship between endorsing reporting guidelines or trial registration and the impact factor or total citations in surgical journals. PeerJ 10:e12837

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to Jon Goodell, M.A., AHIP and the OSU medical library for their procurement of relevant journal information.

Funding

This study was not funded.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Office of Medical Student Research, Oklahoma State University Center for Health Sciences, 1111 W 17Th St., Tulsa, OK, 74107, USA

    Trevon Jelinek, Alexandra Shumard, Jay Modi, Caleb Smith, Danya Nees & Matt Vassar

  2. Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Oklahoma State University Center for Health Sciences, Tulsa, OK, USA

    Matt Vassar

Authors
  1. Trevon Jelinek
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Alexandra Shumard
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Jay Modi
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Caleb Smith
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Danya Nees
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  6. Griffin Hughes
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  7. Matt Vassar
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Contributions

Conceptualization: CS, DN, and MV; Methodology: CS, DN, and MV; Data collection: TJ and AS; Statistical Analysis: GH; Writing - original draft preparation: TJ, AS, and JM; Writing - review and editing: TJ, AS, JM, CS, DN, GH, MV; Supervision: MV. All authors take full responsibility for the integrity and accuracy of all aspects of the work.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Trevon Jelinek.

Ethics declarations

Conflict of interest

No financial or other sources of support were provided during the development of this manuscript. Dr. Vassar reports receipt of funding from the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, the US Office of Research Integrity, Oklahoma Center for Advancement of Science and Technology, and internal grants from Oklahoma State University Center for Health Sciences—all outside of the present work. All other authors have nothing to report.

Additional information

Publisher's Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Jelinek, T., Shumard, A., Modi, J. et al. Endorsement of reporting guidelines and clinical trial registration across Scopus-indexed rheumatology journals: a cross-sectional analysis. Rheumatol Int 44, 909–917 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00296-023-05474-4

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00296-023-05474-4

Keywords

Search

Navigation