Recommendations For Reporting Of Observational Research Published

Main Category: Infectious Diseases / Bacteria / Viruses
Article Date: 15 Oct 2007 - 17:00 PDT

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Two papers setting out recommendations for the reporting of epidemiological research are published in this week's PLoS Medicine, along with several other journals. The recommendations are the result of a 3 year international collaboration known as the STROBE (Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology) Initiative.

Much biomedical research is observational. The reporting of such research is often inadequate, which hampers the assessment of its strengths and weaknesses and of a study's generalisability. The recommendations are for what should be included in an accurate and complete report of an observational study.

The papers, with lead authors Jan Vandenbroucke, Matthias Egger and Erik von Elm, describe the development of and rationale for a 22 item checklist that relate to the title, abstract, introduction, methods, results, and discussion sections of articles. The checklist is intended for use by researchers, authors and editors during the publication of these articles but will also be of value to readers of these papers.

The papers are published under an open access license at PLoS Medicine and are also freely available on other journal websites and from the STROBE Initiative website http://www.strobe-statement.org/.

Citation: von Elm E, Altman DG, Egger M, Pocock SJ, Gøtzsche PC, et al. (2007) The Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (STROBE) Statement: Guidelines for reporting observational studies. PLoS Med 4(10): e296.
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Citation: Vandenbroucke JP, von Elm E, Altman DG, Gøtzsche PC, Mulrow CD, et al. (2007) Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (STROBE): Explanation and Elaboration. PLoS Med 4(10): e297
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