Did a change in Nature journals’ editorial policy for life sciences research improve reporting?

Abstract

ObjectiveTo determine whether a change in editorial policy, including the implementation of a checklist, has been associated with improved reporting of measures which might reduce the risk of bias.MethodsThe study protocol has been published at doi: 10.1007/s11192-016-1964-8.DesignObservational cohort study.PopulationArticles describing research in the life sciences published in Nature journals, submitted after 1 May 2013.InterventionMandatory completion of a checklist during manuscript revision.Comparators(1) Articles describing research in the life sciences published in Nature journals, submitted before May 2013; and (2) similar articles in other journals matched for date and topic.Primary outcomeThe primary outcome is change in the proportion of Nature articles describing in vivo research published before and after May 2013 reporting the ‘Landis 4’ items (randomisation, blinding, sample size calculation and exclusions). We included 448 Nature Publishing Group (NPG) articles (223 published before May 2013, and 225 after) identified by an individual hired by NPG for this specific task, working to a standard procedure; and an independent investigator used PubMed ‘Related Citations’ to identify 448 non-NPG articles with a similar topic and date of publication from other journals; and then redacted all articles for time-sensitive information and journal name. Redacted articles were assessed by two trained reviewers against a 74-item checklist, with discrepancies resolved by a third.Results394 NPG and 353 matching non-NPG articles described in vivo research. The number of NPG articles meeting all relevant Landis 4 criteria increased from 0/203 prior to May 2013 to 31/181 (16.4%) after (two-sample test for equality of proportions without continuity correction, Χ²=36.2, df=1, p=1.8×10−9). There was no change in the proportion of non-NPG articles meeting all relevant Landis 4 criteria (1/164 before, 1/189 after). There were more substantial improvements in the individual prevalences of reporting of randomisation, blinding, exclusions and sample size calculations for in vivo experiments, and less substantial improvements for in vitro experiments.ConclusionThere was an improvement in the reporting of risks of bias in in vivo research in NPG journals following a change in editorial policy, to a level that to our knowledge has not been previously observed. However, there remain opportunities for further improvement.

Comparing quality of reporting between preprints and peer-reviewed articles in the biomedical literature

“…Previous studies have also found that providing additional specialized review based on reporting guidelines led to small improvements to manuscripts, while suggesting reporting checklists to regular reviewers had no effect (Cobo et al, 2007, 2011). Reporting guidelines and checklists provided to authors during the review or manuscript preparation processes have been reported to cause modest improvements limited to a few items in in vivo animal studies (Han et al, 2017; Leung et al, 2018; Hair, Macleod and Sena, 2019; The NPQIP Collaborative group, 2019). Thus, the intuitive expectation that quality of reporting should be an aspect of study quality that is easily amenable to improvement by peer review does not seem to be confirmed by the available data.…”

“…Evaluation of each study was performed through an online questionnaire implemented on Google Forms. Questions were based on existing reporting guidelines (Moher et al, 2001; von Elm et al, 2007; Kilkenny et al, 2010; Bossuyt et al, 2015), journal checklists (Nature, 2013) and previous studies on quality of reporting (Hair, Macleod and Sena, 2019; The NPQIP Collaborative group, 2019), and are presented along with their response options on Table S1 . They were based on direct, objective criteria, in an attempt to avoid the need for subjective evaluation.…”

“…Transparency and quality of reporting, however, can be assessed more objectively, with reporting guidelines and checklists available in many fields of science to guide authors on the minimum information that a manuscript should include (Simera et al, 2009). Quality of reporting is used to evaluate study quality in meta-analyses (Ryan et al, 2013), as well as the effect of interventions focused on improving transparency (Han et al, 2017; Hair, Macleod and Sena, 2019; The NPQIP Collaborative group, 2019). Moreover, it may be the aspect of manuscript quality that is most readily amenable to improvement by peer review, as reporting issues should be relatively simple to detect and fix.…”

“…In this study, we aim to compare quality of reporting between preprints and peer-reviewed articles in the life sciences. For this, we compiled a simplified list of essential items that should be reported in different types of biomedical articles, based on existing checklists (Moher, Schulz and Altman, 2001; von Elm et al, 2007; Kilkenny et al, 2010; Bossuyt et al, 2015; Hair, Macleod and Sena, 2019; The NPQIP Collaborative group, 2019). We first selected independent random samples of preprints from bioRxiv and peer-reviewed articles from PubMed, in order to compare quality of reporting between them.…”

The ARRIVE guidelines 2019: updated guidelines for reporting animal research

“…A randomised controlled trial at PLOS ONE, for example, demonstrated that a request by journal staff to include a completed ARRIVE checklist in the manuscript submission process did not improve the disclosure of information in published papers [31]. In contrast, other studies using reporting checklists with more editorial follow up have shown a marked improvement in the nature and detail of the information included in publications [32][33][34]. Providing the level of journal or editorial input required to ensure compliance with all the items of the ARRIVE guidelines is unlikely to be sustainable for most journals because of the resources needed.…”