Keeping Up with the Standards

There has been a not-so-silent revolution in research over the last decade. Though researchers had been publishing guidelines and decrying the disarray or lack of uniform design standards for some time, evidence-based guidelines to help direct research design and publication are relatively new. The first major undertaking was CONSORT (Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials), published in 1996. (1) It has seen updates in 2001 and 2010. The IJTMB has always recommended that authors follow the CONSORT statement when submitting research manuscripts. There are many reasons for doing so, amongst the chief reasons being that it ensures thoroughness of reporting and inclusion of information needed both for understanding and assessing the research, and for facilitating comparisons between similar studies and meta-analysis of study results. In my editorial of December 2012, (2) I was pleased to bring attention to the CONSORT extension for nonpharmaecutical interventions, (3) where an extension identifies specific additional items that provide a nuanced application of the primary guideline, as the extension is applicable to therapeutic massage and body work research. I also recommended at that time that, in the absence of internationally supported and developed protocol development guidelines, such reporting guidelines can provide concise direction to the development of protocols, though the design-specific details must still be provided by the researcher. In 2013 the first major reporting guideline for protocols was published, SPIRIT (Standard Protocol Items: Recommendations for Interventional Trials). (4) While still a reporting guideline, it is better suited for providing a thorough framework for developing a research protocol. The extension for nonpharmaceutical interventions is just one of many extensions being developed for CONSORT, and parallel reporting guidelines have been developed, such as for systematic reviews (PRISMA), qualitative research (COREQ), and recently case reports (CARE) and the SPIRIT guideline. Each of these may have extensions. While the IJTMB author guidelines have continued to recommend the use of these guidelines, the 2014 version highlights two important changes: 1. The IJTMB no longer recommends authors use the appropriate guideline, but expects authors to use them. Increasingly the IJTMB editors are holding authors to that standard, like many other peer-reviewed medical journals. This has the effect of assisting the publication of transparent, high-quality research, while providing direction to authors on what to include in a well-written research manuscript. 2. The IJTMB no longer lists all the guidelines available. The EQUATOR Network was launched in 2008, with a website shortly thereafter …