Reporting Guidelines

Reporting Guidelines

Standards for Complete and Transparent Research Reporting

Authors must follow the reporting guideline appropriate to the research design. Reporting guidelines support complete, transparent, reproducible, and critically assessable scholarly reporting.

Authors may be required to upload a completed reporting checklist indicating the manuscript page number on which each applicable item is addressed.
Study Design Guideline Official Resource
Observational studies STROBE Access
Randomized controlled trials CONSORT Access
Nonrandomized public-health interventions TREND Access
Systematic reviews and meta-analyses PRISMA Access
Scoping reviews PRISMA-ScR Access
Qualitative interviews and focus groups COREQ Access
General qualitative research SRQR Access
Economic evaluations CHEERS Access
Diagnostic accuracy studies STARD Access
Quality-improvement studies SQUIRE Access
Intervention descriptions TIDieR Access

General reporting requirements

All manuscripts should report the following information when applicable:

  • Research problem, evidence gap, objective, and hypothesis
  • Study design and analytical framework
  • Setting, geographic scope, and study dates
  • Eligibility, sampling, recruitment, and sample-size basis
  • Variables, outcomes, exposures, covariates, and definitions
  • Measurement validity and reliability
  • Data-collection and quality-assurance procedures
  • Statistical or qualitative analysis methods
  • Software name and version
  • Effect estimates, intervals, and relevant thresholds
  • Missing-data and sensitivity-analysis procedures
  • Ethics approval, consent, confidentiality, and registration
  • Study limitations and potential sources of bias
  • Implications for public-health research, policy, education, or practice

Systematic and scoping reviews

Review manuscripts should report:

  • The review question and objectives
  • Protocol and registration information
  • Eligibility criteria
  • Information sources and search dates
  • Complete reproducible search strategies
  • Study-selection and data-extraction processes
  • Risk-of-bias or critical-appraisal methods where applicable
  • Synthesis and statistical-analysis methods
  • Study-selection flow diagram
  • Evidence limitations and certainty where relevant

Checklist submission

When requested, upload the completed reporting checklist as a supplementary file. Indicate the manuscript page or section in which each reporting item is addressed. Mark an item as not applicable only when it genuinely does not apply to the study.

Authors may consult the EQUATOR Network to identify additional guidelines applicable to a specific design or discipline.