Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, Clinical Epidemiology Program, Ottawa, Canada.
PLoS Med. 2010 Aug;8(8):e1001069. doi: 10.1371/journal.pmed.1001069. Epub 2011 Aug 2.
Research needs to be reported transparently so readers can critically assess the strengths and weaknesses of the design, conduct, and analysis of studies. Reporting guidelines have been developed to inform reporting for a variety of study designs. The objective of this study was to identify whether there is a need to develop a reporting guideline for survey research.
We conducted a three-part project: (1) a systematic review of the literature (including "Instructions to Authors" from the top five journals of 33 medical specialties and top 15 general and internal medicine journals) to identify guidance for reporting survey research; (2) a systematic review of evidence on the quality of reporting of surveys; and (3) a review of reporting of key quality criteria for survey research in 117 recently published reports of self-administered surveys. Fewer than 7% of medical journals (n = 165) provided guidance to authors on survey research despite a majority having published survey-based studies in recent years. We identified four published checklists for conducting or reporting survey research, none of which were validated. We identified eight previous reviews of survey reporting quality, which focused on issues of non-response and accessibility of questionnaires. Our own review of 117 published survey studies revealed that many items were poorly reported: few studies provided the survey or core questions (35%), reported the validity or reliability of the instrument (19%), defined the response rate (25%), discussed the representativeness of the sample (11%), or identified how missing data were handled (11%).
There is limited guidance and no consensus regarding the optimal reporting of survey research. The majority of key reporting criteria are poorly reported in peer-reviewed survey research articles. Our findings highlight the need for clear and consistent reporting guidelines specific to survey research.
研究需要透明地报告，以便读者能够批判性地评估研究的设计、实施和分析的优缺点。已经制定了报告指南来告知各种研究设计的报告。本研究的目的是确定是否需要为调查研究制定报告指南。
我们进行了一个三部分的项目：（1）系统地回顾了文献（包括来自 33 个医学专业的前五大期刊和前 15 个普通和内科期刊的“作者指南”），以确定调查研究报告的指南；（2）系统地回顾了调查报告质量的证据；（3）审查了 117 篇最近发表的自我管理调查报告中调查研究的关键质量标准的报告。尽管近年来大多数医学期刊都发表了基于调查的研究，但只有不到 7%的医学期刊（n=165）为作者提供了调查研究的指导。我们确定了四个用于进行或报告调查研究的已发表清单，但没有一个是经过验证的。我们确定了八项以前关于调查报告质量的综述，这些综述侧重于非响应和问卷可及性问题。我们对 117 篇已发表的调查研究的回顾显示，许多项目报告得很差：很少有研究提供调查或核心问题（35%），报告工具的有效性或可靠性（19%），定义了应答率（25%），讨论了样本的代表性（11%），或确定了如何处理缺失数据（11%）。
对于调查研究的最佳报告，指导意见有限，也没有共识。在同行评议的调查研究文章中，大多数关键报告标准都报告得很差。我们的研究结果强调需要制定针对调查研究的明确和一致的报告指南。
