The quality of reporting of diagnostic accuracy studies published in ophthalmic journals.

AIM

To evaluate the quality of reporting of all diagnostic studies published in five major ophthalmic journals in the year 2002 using the Standards for Reporting of Diagnostic Accuracy (STARD) initiative parameters.

METHODS

Manual searching was used to identify diagnostic studies published in 2002 in five leading ophthalmic journals, the American Journal of Ophthalmology (AJO), Archives of Ophthalmology (Archives), British Journal of Ophthalmology (BJO), Investigative Ophthalmology and Visual Science (IOVS), and Ophthalmology. The STARD checklist of 25 items and flow chart was used to evaluate the quality of each publication.

RESULTS

A total of 16 publications were included (AJO = 5, Archives = 1, BJO = 2, IOVS = 2, and Ophthalmology = 6). More than half of the studies (n = 9) were related to glaucoma diagnosis. Other specialties included retina (n = 4) cornea (n = 2), and neuro-ophthalmology (n = 1). The most common description of diagnostic accuracy was sensitivity and specificity values, published in 13 articles. The number of fully reported items in evaluated studies ranged from eight to 19. Seven studies reported more than 50% of the STARD items.

CONCLUSIONS

The current standards of reporting of diagnostic accuracy tests are highly variable. The STARD initiative may be a useful tool for appraising the strengths and weaknesses of diagnostic accuracy studies.