Assessing Requirement Rates of Reporting guidelines and study registration in pediatric medical journals

Abstract

Background: Adherence to reporting guidelines and clinical trial registration are two methods of improving the quality of clinical research by mitigating biases and improving the transparency of research practices. To our knowledge, there is inadequate coverage on the requirements of reporting guideline adherence and clinical trial registration in pediatric medical journals. For this reason, we aim to investigate the adoption of these requirements in the journals’ instructions for authors in this medical specialty.

Methods: Our systematic review assessed the top 100 peer-reviewed clinical pediatric journals that were identified using the 2021 Scopus CiteSource tool. In a masked duplicate fashion, two investigators extracted data from each journal’s “instructions for authors” webpage concerning statements regarding the Enhancing the QUAlity and Transparency Of health Research (EQUATOR) Network and/or ICMJE, selected reporting guidelines as outlined by the EQUATOR Network, and clinical trial registration requirements. To eliminate bias, each journal’s editorial board was contacted to confirm which article types are accepted.

Results: Of the 100 journals analyzed, 61 did not mention the EQUATOR Network (61/100). The most frequent guidelines reported were CONSORT and PRISMA. Thirty-one journals recommended the use of CONSORT guidelines (31/100), while 22 journals required its use (22/100). Twenty-nine journals recommended the use of PRISMA guidelines (29/100), while 12 journals required it (12/100). The least mentioned guidelines were QUOROM and MOOSE. We found that 91 journals did not mention (91/100) the use of QUOROM, and 93 journals did not mention the use of MOOSE (93/100). Clinical trial registration was recommended in 9 journals (9/100) and required in 49 journals (49/100). Overall, we found that none of the investigated reporting guidelines were reported in more than 50% of our journal sample.

Conclusions: The majority of the pediatric journals analyzed scarcely required or recommended reporting guidelines. However, the journals that had a higher frequency of guideline reporting recommendations and requirements had higher rates of mentioning the EQUATOR Network. We recommend that pediatric journals consider enforcing the use of reporting guidelines as this is likely to cause a subsequent improvement in the quality of published results, as well as decrease the incidence of biases.