Reporting Guideline and Clinical Trial Registration Adherence in Nephrology Journals: Results of a Preliminary Systematic Review

Background: Clinicians rely on relevant, high-quality research to inform their decisions regarding patient care. This research is held to a higher standard when journals implement reporting guidelines and clinical trial registration into article submission requirements. Due to the small number of nephrology journals — and the growing yet still limited research in the field — it is of the utmost importance for these journals to apply stringent guidelines to ensure the publication of limited bias and high quality research. However, the extent of reporting guideline adoption and clinical trial registration policies among nephrology journals is unknown. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to examine the recommendation or requirement of reporting guidelines and clinical trial registration in nephrology journals.

Methods: The 2021 Scopus CiteScore Tool was used to identify 62 journals in the “Nephrology” subcategory. In a masked, duplicate fashion, we examined the “Instructions for Authors'' webpage of each included journal to determine whether the following reporting guidelines — outlined by the Enhancing the Quality and Transparency of health Research (EQUATOR) Network — were recommended or required: PRISMA, CONSORT, PRISMA-P, STARD, TRIPOD, MOOSE, ARRIVE, CHEERS, QUOROM, STROBE, CARE, SRQR, SPIRIT, and COREQ. Clinical trial registration statements were investigated in a similar fashion. Journal statements were documented as “Not mentioned”, “Recommended”, “Required”, or “Does Not Require”. Stata 17.0 was used to analyze the data. To minimize bias, all journals were contacted to confirm their accepted article types.

Results: The most frequently mentioned guidelines were CONSORT, STROBE, and PRISMA. Of the 62 nephrology journals investigated, CONSORT was required by 11 (18%) and recommended by 34 (55%) journals. Furthermore, STROBE was required by 7 (11%) and recommended by 27 (44%) journals, and PRISMA was required by 8 (13%) and recommended by 18 (29%) journals. The least frequently mentioned guidelines were QUOROM (0/62, 0%), PRISMA-P (24/60, 40%), and MOOSE (26/62, 42%). Finally, 32 (52%) of journals required and 19 (31%) of journals recommended clinical trial registration.

Discussion: These findings illuminate the variable adoption of reporting guidelines and inconsistent clinical trial registration policies across nephrology journals. We recommend that journal editors in this field require more author adherence to guidelines to improve the quality of research submitted to and published by their journals.