A Short SPIRIT Checklist for Peer Reviewers to Improve the Reporting Quality in Published Articles (SPIRIT-PR)

University of Oxford

Status: Completed

Conditions: Adequate Reporting in Published Study Protocols of Randomized Controlled Trials

Treatments: Other: Usual practice; Other: SPIRIT checklist plus usual practice

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT05820984

SPIRIT-PR 2019

Details and patient eligibility

About

Transparent and accurate reporting is key, so that readers can adequately interpreting the results of a study. The aim of this project is to evaluate whether reminding peer reviewers of the most important SPIRIT reporting items (including a short explanation of those items) will result in higher adherence to SPIRIT guidelines in published protocols for RCTS. During the standard peer-review process, peer-reviewers will be randomly allocated to use either (i) a short version of the SPIRIT checklist including the ten most important and poorly reported SPIRIT items ; or (ii) no checklist. The aim is to find an intervention which improves the reporting, making it easier for readers to adequately interpret the presented articles.

Full description

The full protocol is available on Open Science Framework where the study was prospectively registered: https://osf.io/z2hm9

Enrollment: 178 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18+ years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion and exclusion criteria

Inclusion criteria for journals:

It was planned from the beginning that this study will only be conducted at the BMJ Open as it publishes numerous protocols. Hence, no inclusion criteria for the journal were specified.

Inclusion criteria for manuscripts:

All submitted manuscripts sent out for external review that described protocols for RCTs.

Exclusion criterial for manuscripts:

We excluded (i) Manuscripts which were clearly labelled as a pilot or feasibility study (ii) Studies randomizing animals or cells (iii) Separate publications of data analysis plans

Included peer-reviewers:

-Peer reviewers that were invited following usual journal practice

Trial design

Primary purpose: Other

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: Single Blind

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178 participants in 2 patient groups

SPIRIT checklist plus usual practice

Experimental group

Description:

After accepting to review an article, peer reviewers will receive the automated, journal specific standard email with general information as per each journal's usual practice (e.g. where to access the manuscript, date when the peer review report is due). In addition, peer-reviewers who received a manuscript which was randomised to the experimental arm will receive an additional email including a short version of the SPIRIT checklist together with a short explanation of those items.

Treatment:

Other: SPIRIT checklist plus usual practice

Usual practice

Other group

Description:

After accepting to review an article, peer reviewers will receive the automated, journal specific standard email with general information as per each journal's usual practice.

Treatment:

Other: Usual practice