Reminding Peer Reviewers of Reporting Guideline Items to Improve Completeness in Published Articles: Primary Results of 2 Randomized Trials.

IMPORTANCE

Numerous studies have shown that adherence to reporting guidelines is suboptimal.

OBJECTIVE

To evaluate whether asking peer reviewers to check if specific reporting guideline items were adequately reported would improve adherence to reporting guidelines in published articles.

DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS: Two parallel-group, superiority randomized trials were performed using manuscripts submitted to 7 biomedical journals (5 from the BMJ Publishing Group and 2 from the Public Library of Science) as the unit of randomization, with peer reviewers allocated to the intervention or control group.

INTERVENTIONS

The first trial (CONSORT-PR) focused on manuscripts that presented randomized clinical trial (RCT) results and reported following the Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials (CONSORT) guideline, and the second trial (SPIRIT-PR) focused on manuscripts that presented RCT protocols and reported following the Standard Protocol Items: Recommendations for Interventional Trials (SPIRIT) guideline. The CONSORT-PR trial included manuscripts that described RCT primary results (submitted July 2019 to July 2021). The SPIRIT-PR trial included manuscripts that contained RCT protocols (submitted June 2020 to May 2021). Manuscripts in both trials were randomized (1:1) to the intervention or control group; the control group received usual journal practice. In the intervention group of both trials, peer reviewers received an email from the journal that asked them to check whether the 10 most important and poorly reported CONSORT (for CONSORT-PR) or SPIRIT (for SPIRIT-PR) items were adequately reported in the manuscript. Peer reviewers and authors were not informed of the purpose of the study, and outcome assessors were blinded.

MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES

The difference in the mean proportion of adequately reported 10 CONSORT or SPIRIT items between the intervention and control groups in published articles.

RESULTS

In the CONSORT-PR trial, 510 manuscripts were randomized. Of those, 243 were published (122 in the intervention group and 121 in the control group). A mean proportion of 69.3% (95% CI, 66.0%-72.7%) of the 10 CONSORT items were adequately reported in the intervention group and 66.6% (95% CI, 62.5%-70.7%) in the control group (mean difference, 2.7%; 95% CI, -2.6% to 8.0%). In the SPIRIT-PR trial, of the 244 randomized manuscripts, 178 were published (90 in the intervention group and 88 in the control group). A mean proportion of 46.1% (95% CI, 41.8%-50.4%) of the 10 SPIRIT items were adequately reported in the intervention group and 45.6% (95% CI, 41.7% to 49.4%) in the control group (mean difference, 0.5%; 95% CI, -5.2% to 6.3%).

CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE

These 2 randomized trials found that it was not useful to implement the tested intervention to increase reporting completeness in published articles. Other interventions should be assessed and considered in the future.

TRIAL REGISTRATION

ClinicalTrials.gov Identifiers: NCT05820971 (CONSORT-PR) and NCT05820984 (SPIRIT-PR).