Adherence to reporting guidelines and clinical trial registration in psychiatry and mental health journals: Preliminary results of a cross-sectional analysis

Abstract

Background: To reduce bias and advance research methods, reporting guidelines and trial registration regulations have been adopted by various journal submission instructions. For example, it has been demonstrated that the quality and reproducibility of data reporting in randomized control trials (RCTs) are improved when journals abide by guidelines such as the Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials (CONSORT). Therefore, it is imperative for journals to specify reporting guidelines that authors should follow in order to publish their study. It is unclear how well reporting guidelines and clinical trial registration policies are adhered to by psychiatry and mental health journals. Therefore, the purpose of this systematic review was to investigate psychiatry and mental health journals' practices regarding reporting guideline adoption and trial registration.

Methods: We conducted a systematic review to evaluate the top 100 psychiatry medical journals according to the 2021 Scopus CiteScore tool. In a masked, duplicate fashion, the “instructions to authors” webpage of each journal was assessed to identify whether journals required, recommended, or mentioned reporting guidelines outlined by the EQUATOR network. We also extracted data on whether journals recommended or required systematic review or clinical trial registration. To reduce the risk of bias, the article types accepted by each journal were confirmed via contacting the editorial team.

Results: Only 37 out of the 100 journals mentioned the EQUATOR Network (37/100, 37%). The most referenced guidelines were CONSORT at 56% (53/95), followed by PRISMA at 48% (48/99). There is statistical significance between journals that mention both EQUATOR and CONSORT (p < .001), as well as between journals that mention both EQUATOR and PRISMA (p < .001). The MOOSE and QUOROM guidelines were the least mentioned as both were recommended/required in less than 10% of the psychiatry journals. Regarding study registration, 62 of the 100 journals (62%) either recommend or require clinical trial registration.

Conclusions: Our results indicate the majority of psychiatry journals do not mention reporting guidelines or the EQUATOR network. CONSORT was the only guideline that was mentioned in over half of the evaluated journals. We recommend that the editors of psychiatry and mental health journals better adhere to the recommendation of reporting guidelines and clinical trial registration by prospective authors.