Adherence to Reporting Guidelines and Trial Registration in Pulmonary and Respiratory Medicine Journals

Background/Objective: Reporting guidelines and clinical trial registration policies are implemented to ensure that only quality, unbiased research has effects on clinical practice and patient care. It is unknown the extent at which pulmonary and respiratory medicine journals encourage/enforce the use of these tools. Therefore, this study sought to assess the extent to which scientific journals for pulmonary and respiratory medicine advise or require adherence to reporting guidelines and clinical trial registration.

Methods: A web-base search, using the 2021 Scopus CiteScore tool, was performed to identify pulmonary and respiratory medicine journals. The top 100 Journals from this search that met inclusion criteria were included in this study. Using the "Instructions for Authors" subsection of each journal's website. We collected data regarding journal's mention of EQUATOR network, as well as recommendations or requirements for clinical trial registration and adherence to the following reporting guidelines: CONSORT, MOOSE, QUOROM, PRISMA, STARD, STROBE, ARRIVE, CARE, CHEERS, SRQR, SQUIRE, SPIRIT, TRIPOD, and PRISMA-P. To mitigate bias, editors of each journal were emailed to determine what study types they accept.

Results: Of the top 100 pulmonary and respiratory medicine journals, approximately 60% required clinical trial registration. EQUATOR was mentioned in 30% of included journals. The most frequently required guidelines were CONSORT (29%) and PRISMA (20%). The least mentioned reporting guidelines included: QUORUM (99%), PRISMA-P (75%), COREQ (74%), and CHEERS (74%). A significant association was noted between mentioning of the EQUATOR network and reporting guideline recommendations and requirements. However, EQUATOR mentioned in the "Instructions for Authors" was not statistically associated with increased clinical trial registration requirements.

Conclusion: We found that adherence to reporting guidelines are not frequently required by pulmonary and respiratory medicine journals. Conversely, the majority of pulmonary and respiratory medicine journals do require clinical trial registration. Both clinical trial registration and adherence to research guidelines improve research quality and limit biased reporting. Current pulmonary and respiratory medicine literature stands to benefit from increased reporting guidelines adherence.