Grant: Knowledge Synthesis Grant

Practices in research reporting are not optimal; reporting most of health research is poor which makes it more difficult to use research to guide clinical practice. In turn, this affects the decisions that health care professionals are making regarding patient care and may lead to improper treatment decisions. To fix this problem, many reporting guidelines for health research have been developed. Yet their impact on the quality of research reports is still largely unknown. A recent systematic review identified 81 health research reporting guidelines. The proposed systematic review will bring together studies that evaluate the impact of these guidelines on reporting research. Users of reporting guidelines, such as journal editors, peer reviewers and authors, require this information in order to judge the usefulness of a particular guideline when deciding whether or not to use it. This review will provide incentive to journal editors to adhere to reporting guidelines found to be effective at improving reporting quality. Adhering to such guidelines will improve a journals reporting quality and research overall.