Using Reporting Guidelines Effectively to Ensure Good Reporting of Health Research

Abstract

This chapter examines how reporting guidelines can be used by researchers and others to improve the quality of the accumulating research literature and ultimately benefit patients. It considers whose responsibility it is to ensure good reporting of research. A reporting guideline lists the minimum set of items that should be included in a research report to provide a clear and transparent account of what was done and what was found. Researchers are the primary target group of most reporting guidelines as they benefit directly from their use both as authors and peer reviewers of research articles. However, many others can indirectly benefit from the use of reporting guidelines: readers of research articles, systematic reviewers, clinical guideline developers, research funders, journal editors and publishers, patients, and society at large. Journal editors can use reporting guidelines in several ways.