Better Reporting of Scientific Studies: Why It Matters

[1], PLOS Medicine is launching a new Reporting Guidelines Collection [2], an open access collection of reporting guidelines , commentary, and related research on guidelines from across PLOS journals. This collection is consistent with the goals of the Peer Review Congress: ''to improve the quality and credibility of scientific peer review and publication and to help advance the efficiency, effectiveness, and equitability of the dissemination of biomedical information throughout the world'' [2]. As early as 1990, Iain Chalmers, one of the founders of the Cochrane Collaboration , stated that, ''Failure to publish an adequate account of a well-designed clinical trial is a form of scientific misconduct that can lead those caring for patients to make inappropriate treatment decisions .'' [3]. Guidelines and checklists for reporting scientific studies are not just tick box exercises; rather, they help to improve the transparency and presentation of studies and, therefore, have the potential to improve the impact and implementation of scientific research. PLOS Medicine has a strong history of promoting policies that aim to improve study design and transparency of reporting and publishing them in an open-access venue. We published our first reporting guideline – the STROBE (Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology) Statement [4,5] –more than 5 years ago. While the STROBE Statement was published concurrently with several other leading medical journals , critically, PLOS Medicine was the only open access journal to publish it at that time. For reporting guidelines to be useful, it is essential that they be widely disseminated , made freely available, and without restrictions on reuse. Since we published the STROBE Statement in 2007, there has been a shift toward making reporting guidelines more freely available; the EQUATOR (Enhancing the Quality and Transparency of Health Research; http://www. equator-network.org/) Network, launched in June 2008, provides freely accessible links to published guidelines. To support PLOS Medicine's aim of encouraging the highest possible standards in medical research and reporting, the journal launched ''Guidelines and Guid-ance'' in 2008, a new section within the Magazine that publishes reporting guidelines , research priorities, methodological issues, and other articles providing guidance on the conduct and reporting of research [6]. Reporting guidelines have evolved since the original CONSORT Statement was published in 1996 [7] as a minimum set of recommendations for reporting random-ized controlled trials (RCT). The CON-SORT Statement was updated in 2001 and 2010, and several extensions of the guidelines have been developed …