Evidence map›Paper›PMID 23671390›Full record

ArticleJournal of multidisciplinary healthcare2013

A systematic scoping review of adherence to reporting guidelines in health care literature.

Zainab Samaan, Lawrence Mbuagbaw, Daisy Kosa, Victoria Borg Debono, Rejane Dillenburg, Shiyuan Zhang, Vincent Fruci, Brittany Dennis, Monica Bawor, Lehana Thabane

Abstract readScoping Review
PubMed Full text at PMC Publisher
In one paragraph

Article in Journal of multidisciplinary healthcare, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 88 papers, 12 of them syntheses that pooled it.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
88citing papers in PubMed, 12 pooled it
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

88 citing papers in PubMed, 12 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.

  1. Pooled it
  2. Pooled it
  3. Pooled it
  4. Pooled it
  5. Pooled it
  6. Pooled it
  7. Pooled it
  8. Pooled it
  9. Pooled it
  10. Pooled it
  11. Guideline
  12. Pooled it
  13. Trial
  14. Review
  15. Journal Instructions Are Not Optional: Yet Authors Still Ignore Them.Indian journal of psychological medicine · 2026
    Article
  16. Article
  17. Promoting informed health choices: the long and winding road.Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine · 2025
    Article
  18. Article
  19. Article
  20. Review

28 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.

4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

10 authors.

Zainab SamaanDepartment of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurosciences, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, Canada ; Department of Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, Canada ; Population Genomics Program, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, Canada.
Lawrence Mbuagbaw
Daisy Kosa
Victoria Borg Debono
Rejane Dillenburg
Shiyuan Zhang
Vincent Fruci
Brittany Dennis
Monica Bawor
Lehana Thabane

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

backgroundReporting guidelines have been available for the past 17 years since the inception of the Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials statement in 1996. These guidelines were developed to improve the quality of reporting of studies in medical literature. Despite the widespread availability of these guidelines, the quality of reporting of medical literature remained suboptimal. In this study, we assess the current adherence practice to reporting guidelines; determine key factors associated with better adherence to these guidelines; and provide recommendations to enhance adherence to reporting guidelines for future studies.

methodsWe undertook a systematic scoping review of systematic reviews of adherence to reporting guidelines across different clinical areas and study designs. We searched four electronic databases (Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature, Web of Science, Embase, and Medline) from January 1996 to September 2012. Studies were included if they addressed adherence to one of the following guidelines: Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials (CONSORT), Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA), Quality of Reporting of Meta-analysis (QUOROM), Transparent Reporting of Evaluations with Nonrandomized Designs (TREND), Meta-analysis Of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (MOOSE) and Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (STROBE). A protocol for this study was devised. A literature search, data extraction, and quality assessment were performed independently by two authors in duplicate. This study reporting follows the PRISMA guidelines.

resultsOur search retrieved 5159 titles, of which 50 were eligible. Overall, 86.0% of studies reported suboptimal levels of adherence to reporting guidelines. Factors associated with better adherence included journal impact factor and endorsement of guidelines, publication date, funding source, multisite studies, pharmacological interventions and larger studies.

conclusionReporting guidelines in the clinical literature are important to improve the standards of reporting of clinical studies; however, adherence to these guidelines remains suboptimal. Action is therefore needed to enhance the adherence to these standards. Strategies to enhance adherence include journal editorial policies endorsing these guidelines.

Indexed as

adherenceguidelinesreportingreviewscopingsystematic

Identifiers

PMID23671390
PMCPMC3649856

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.