The Single-Case Reporting Guideline In BEhavioural Interventions (SCRIBE) 2016: Explanation and elaboration.

Abstract

There is substantial evidence that research studies reported in the scientific literature do not provide adequate information so that readers know exactly what was done and what was found. This problem has been addressed by the development of reporting guidelines which tell authors what should be reported and how it should be described. Many reporting guidelines are now available for different types of research designs. There is no such guideline for one type of research design commonly used in the behavioral sciences, the single-case experimental design (SCED). The present study addressed this gap. This report describes the Single-Case Reporting guideline In BEhavioural interventions (SCRIBE) 2016, which is a set of 26 items that authors need to address when writing about SCED research for publication in a scientific journal. Each item is described, a rationale for its inclusion is provided, and examples of adequate reporting taken from the literature are quoted. It is recommended that the SCRIBE 2016 is used by authors preparing manuscripts describing SCED research for publication, as well as journal reviewers and editors who are evaluating such manuscripts.

Internet Gaming Disorder Treatment: A Case Study Evaluation of Four Different Types of Adolescent Problematic Gamers

“…phase A acted as a control and was compared to B and A' (Tate et al 2016). Moreover, seven key time points were chosen to collect repeated main measures, and self-report diaries were completed in which participants recorded the number of hours spent on online video games.…”

“…The present study employed an A-B-A' withdrawal design (Byiers et al 2012;Tate et al 2016). Phase changes were marked using the following criteria: (i) A-B occurred when all measurements for phase A had been obtained; (ii) B-A' occurred when the intervention was complete; and (iii) phase A' occurred with data collection three months after treatment ended.…”

“…The case study reports in the contemporary literature (Griffiths 2010;King et al 2012;Schwartz 2013;Torres-Rodríguez and Carbonell 2015) are relevant and important for their qualitative and clinical value. However, they are not as robust as unique case studies with experimental and semi-experimental methodologies, such as withdrawal designs (Tate et al 2016).…”

Exploring the use of a humanoid robot to engage children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)

“…Ethical approval for the conduction of the study was given by the Local Health Trust. In reporting the methodology and results of the current study, we followed the Single-Case Reporting guideline In BEhavioural interventions (SCRIBE) which was recently published to improve the reporting of single-case research [15].…”

The Single-Case Reporting Guideline In BEhavioural Interventions (SCRIBE) 2016 Statement†

“…We present the resulting 26-item SCRIBE 2016 checklist. The article complements the more detailed SCRIBE 2016 Explanation and Elaboration article (Tate et al, 2016) that provides a rationale for each of the items and examples of adequate reporting from the literature. Both these resources will assist authors to prepare reports of single-case research with clarity, completeness, accuracy, and transparency.…”