To review the instructions for authors from addiction journals as they pertained to clinical trial registration and reporting guideline policies, we based our methods on similar previously published studies.
7,11 This study did not meet the regulatory definition of human subject research as defined in 45 CFR 46.102(d) and (f) of the Department of Health and Human Services’ Code of Federal Regulations
28 and therefore was not subject to Institutional Review Board oversight.
We used Google Scholar Metrics’ h-5 index to identify the top 20 addiction research journals (Google, Inc). We then examined the instructions for authors from each journal to identify whether they required, recommended, or made no mention of trial registration and reporting guidelines. A web-based search was performed on September 27, 2017 by 1 author (C.C.), who identified each journal's instructions for authors and other relevant sections regarding manuscript submission. Each journal's policy statement for the following guidelines were extracted: Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials (CONSORT), Meta-Analysis of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (MOOSE), Quality of Reporting of Meta-analyses (QUOROM), Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA), Standards for Reporting Diagnostic Accuracy Studies (STARD), Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (STROBE), Animal Research: Reporting of In Vivo Experiments (ARRIVE), Case Reports guidelines checklist (CARE), Consolidated Health Economic Evaluation Reporting Standards (CHEERS), Standards for Reporting Qualitative Research (SRQR), Standards for Quality Improvement Reporting Excellence (SQUIRE), Standard Protocol Items: Recommendations for Interventional Trials (SPIRIT), Consolidated Criteria for Reporting Qualitative Research (COREQ), Transparent Reporting of a Multivariate Prediction Model for Individual Prognosis or Diagnosis (TRIPOD), Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis Protocols (PRISMA-P), and the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) guidelines. Any other policies mentioning clinical trial registration and systematic review registration requirements as well as recommended trial and review registries were also noted when appropriate.
Three authors (C.C., H.G., L.B.) reviewed the journal policy statements and determined whether a journal required, recommended, or did not mention each reporting guideline and trial registration. Terms such as “must” or “required” led the reviewers to grade the policy as “required,” while terms such as “should” or “suggest” led the reviewers to grade the policy as “recommended.” These terms were agreed upon before review, and the reviewers were blinded to the others’ decisions. If the reviewers disagreed, a 4th reviewer (J.C.) was available for adjudication. This information was entered into a custom Google spreadsheet (Google, Inc). If a journal did not publish a particular type of study relevant to a specific reporting guideline, we excluded that reporting guideline for that journal when calculating percent of adherence. For example, if a journal did not publish clinical trials, then the CONSORT statement was not relevant to that journal and was excluded. The above methods were previously described by Sims et al
11 2016 in an analysis of reporting guidelines and trial registration adherence in emergency medicine journals.