Speaker
Description
Background:
For many years, health research has faced substantial criticism regarding its quality. Appropriate reporting guidelines are available with the EQUATOR (Enhancing the QUAlity and Transparency Of health Research) network acting as an umbrella organization to address reporting issues in health sciences. Nevertheless, many reviews have shown that reporting quality remains poor, which biases the impression conveyed by published literature, and reduces the validity of systematic reviews and meta-analyses.
The REporting recommendations for tumor MARKer prognostic studies (REMARK) discuss in detail different steps of an analysis and stress the importance of reporting all analyses. The two-part REMARK profile, a structured summary that highlights key aspects of a prognostic marker study, with an emphasis on all analyses performed, was proposed (Altman et al 2012). Related profiles were proposed for other types of studies in clinical and methodological research.
Methods:
Using a simple clinical example, we introduce the REMARK profile. Two examples from a review of prognostic factor studies are used to illustrate severe weaknesses in analyses reported in published papers (Sauerbrei et al 2022a). Core principles of the REMARK profile can be used to derive similar profiles for methodological studies. This is illustrated in two examples: a study on the multivariable fractional polynomial (MFP) approach (Sauerbrei et al 2023), and an individual patient data (IPD) meta-analysis investigating treatment interaction with a continuous variable (Sauerbrei et al 2022b). We illustrate and discuss the importance of following reporting guidelines and summarizing key aspects of a study in a structured way.
Results:
Structured reporting can be used for clinical and methodological research in the health sciences. It can improve the reporting of research and reveal severe weaknesses in some analyses.
Conclusions:
In health and methodological research, good reporting is generally feasible and straightforward to implement. A carefully designed structured profile can improve reporting, help reviewers and readers better understand analysis strategies and their weaknesses, and facilitate the interpretation of results. Structured reporting is a simple and effective way to improve reporting and should be used broadly.
Altman et al 2012, doi 10.1186/1741-7015-10-51
Sauerbrei et al 2022a, doi: 10.1186/s12916-022-02304-5
Sauerbrei et al 2022b, doi: 10.1186/s12874-022-01516-w
Sauerbrei et al 2023, doi: 10.1186/s41512-023-00145-1
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