Endorsement of Reporting Guidelines and Clinical Trial Registration by Transplantation Journals: A Cross-sectional Review.

BACKGROUND

Reporting guidelines for diverse study designs and the formal registration of clinical trials play a pivotal role in curbing bias and enhancing transparency in research methodologies. However, there has been no prior assessment of surgical transplantation journals regarding their endorsement or omission of reporting guidelines and clinical trial registration. Therefore, this study aims to investigate these journals and categorize the "instructions to authors" concerning the inclusion, recommendation, or stipulation of reporting guidelines and trial registration.

METHODS

A total of 46 transplantation clinical journals, as determined by the Scopus CiteScore tool, met the eligibility criteria for analysis. The journals' titles, 5-year impact factors, and details of 18 reporting guidelines were extracted by 2 independent investigators in a masked, duplicate manner from each journal's "instructions to authors" section. Furthermore, information about whether these journals mandated clinical trial registration was also gathered. As part of our methodology, we initiated email correspondence with the journals every 3 weeks to provide them an opportunity to clarify their accepted publication types. In instances where certain study designs were not accepted by journals, we excluded those study designs from our analysis related to the corresponding reporting guidelines.

RESULTS

A total of 12 (12 of 46; 26.1%) transplantation journals mentioned the EQUATOR Network, an online resource of validated and developing reporting guidelines. Of the 46 journals examined, CONSORT was the most commonly mentioned guideline with 10 (10 of 46; 21.7%) journals requiring it and 19 (19 of 46; 41.3%) journals recommending it. The QUOROM guideline was never mentioned by any journal. Finally, 24 (24/46; 52.2%) required and 8 (8/46; 17.4%) recommended the clinical trial registration, totaling 32 (32/46; 69.6%) mentioning clinical trial registration.

CONCLUSION

A notable deficiency of mandated reporting guidelines exists within the leading transplantation journals. Given the complex nature of transplantation medicine and its focus on critically ill patients, it is imperative for transplantation journals to enforce either mandatory or highly recommended adherence to reporting guidelines. This step is vital to enhance the quality of research that potentially shapes patient care practices.