What Affects Authors’ and Editors’ Use of Reporting Guidelines? Findings from an Online Survey and Qualitative Interviews
Open accessAbstract
OBJECTIVES: To identify and understand, through data from multiple sources, some of the factors that affect authors' and editors' decisions to use reporting guidelines in the publication of health research. DESIGN: Mixed methods study comprising an online survey and semi-structured interviews with a sample of authors (online survey: n = 56; response rate = 32%; semi-structured interviews: n = 5) and journal editors (online survey: n = 43; response rate = 27%; semi-structured interviews: n = 6) involved in publishing health and medical research. Participants were recruited from an earlier study examining the effectiveness of the TREND reporting guideline. RESULTS: Four types of factors interacted to affect authors' and editors' likelihood of reporting guideline use; individual (e.g., having multiple reasons for use of reporting guidelines); the professional culture in which people work; environmental (e.g., policies of journals); and, practical (e.g., having time to use reporting guidelines). Having multiple reasons for using reporting guidelines was a particularly salient factor in facilitating reporting guidelines use for both groups of participants. CONCLUSIONS: Improving the completeness and consistency of reporting of research studies is critical to the integrity and synthesis of health research. The use of reporting guidelines offers one potentially efficient and effective means for achieving this, but decisions to use (or not use) reporting guidelines take many factors into account. These findings could be used to inform future studies that might, for example, test the factors that we have identified within a wider theoretical framework for understanding changes in professional practices. The use of reporting guidelines by senior professionals appears to shape the expectations of what constitutes best practice and can be assimilated into the culture of a field or discipline. Without evidence of effectiveness of reporting guidelines, and sustained, multifaceted efforts to improve reporting, little progress seems likely to be made.
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Publication of a reporting guideline and endorsement by journals are not sufficient to improve research reporting.
“Publication of a reporting guideline and endorsement by journals are not sufficient to improve research reporting [80].”
From The Reporting of Studies Conducted Using Observational Routinely-Collected Health Data (RECORD) statement. (2015) · cites this paper as [80]
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- Authors
- Fuller, T., Pearson, M., Peters, J., & Anderson, R.
- Affiliations
- University of Exeter (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Fuller, Thomas
- Venue
- PLOS ONE
- Publisher
- Public Library of Science (PLoS)
- Published
- 2015-04-15
- Volume
- 10
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- e0121585
- ISSN
- 1932-6203 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC4398362
- OpenAlex
- W2119145931
- Cited by
- 47
- References
- 54
- Citations by year
- 2026: 5 · 2025: 1 · 2024: 9 · 2023: 3 · 2022: 2 · 2021: 4 · 2020: 7 · 2019: 4 · 2018: 1 · 2017: 5 · 2016: 4 · 2015: 2
- FWCI
- 3.64
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- PLoS ONE (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Research Publications (Maastricht University) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Repository@Hull (Worktribe) (University of Hull) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Figshare (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Figshare (submittedVersion)
- Open Research Exeter (University of Exeter) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Research Publications (Maastricht University) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Funders
- National Institute for Health and Care Research
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Statistics, Probability and Uncertainty › Meta-analysis and systematic reviews
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Information Systems and Management › Academic Publishing and Open Access
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Health Policy Implementation Science
- Keywords
- reporting guidelines, reporting quality, health research, medical research, journal editors, professional culture, editorial policy, research integrity, best practices adoption
- MeSH terms
- Humans, Publishing, Surveys and Questionnaires, Guidelines as Topic, Editorial Policies, Biomedical Research
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