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The EQUATOR Network is an “umbrella” organisation that brings together researchers, medical journal editors, peer reviewers, developers of reporting guidelines, research funding bodies and other collaborators with mutual interest in improving the quality of research publications and of research itself.
A reporting guideline is a simple, structured tool for health researchers to use while writing manuscripts. A reporting guideline provides a minimum list of information needed to ensure a manuscript can be, for example:
- Understood by a reader,
- Replicated by a researcher,
- Used by a doctor to make a clinical decision, and
- Included in a systematic review.
Authors of research articles frequently forget to report details about their study which are important for readers to know. This can delay publication and stop their work being used, cited or replicated. This is a waste of the human and financial resources invested in the research.
Reporting Guidelines and checklists have been developed for a wide variety of research types and study designs which set up the most important things readers need to know about your work. (https://www.equator-network.org/toolkits/selecting-the-appropriate-reporting-guideline/)
Different reporting guidelines for main study types can be find in the equator network website:
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Reporting guidelines and checklists
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1.
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CONSORT - CONsolidated Standards Of Reporting Trials
- a 25-item checklist for reporting of randomised controlled trials. There are appropriate extensions to the CONSORT statement due to variations in the standard trial methodology such as different design aspects (e.g., cluster, pragmatic, non-inferiority and equivalence trials), interventions (e.g., herbals) and data (e.g., harms, including the extension for writing abstracts)
SPIRIT - Standard Protocol Items: Recommendations for Interventional Trials
- a 33-item checklist for reporting protocols for RCTs
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2.
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COREQ - COnsolidated criteria for REporting Qualitative research
- a 32-item checklist for reporting qualitative research of interviews and focus groups
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3.
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STARD - STAndards for the Reporting of Diagnostic accuracy studies
- a 25-item checklist for reporting of diagnostic accuracy studies
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PRISMA - Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses
- a 27-item checklist for reporting of systematic reviews
PRISMA-P - Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses
Protocols
- a 17-item checklist for reporting of systematic review and meta-analysis protocols
MOOSE - Meta-analysis Of Observational Studies in Epidemiology
- a 35-item checklist for reporting of meta-analyses of observational studies
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5.
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STROBE - STrengthening the Reporting of OBservational studies in Epidemiology
- for reporting of observational studies in epidemiology
- Checklist for cohort, case-control and cross-sectional studies (combined)
- Checklist for cohort studies
- Checklist for case-control studies
- Checklist for cross-sectional studies
Extensions of the STROBE statement
STROME-ID - STrengthening the Reporting Of Molecular Epidemiology for Infectious Diseases
STREGA - STrengthening the REporting of Genetic Associations
- a 22-item checklist for reporting of gene-disease association studies
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6.
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CHEERS - Consolidated Health Economic Evaluation Reporting Standards
- a 24-item checklist for reporting of health economic evaluations
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