The Role of Reporting Guidelines in Research Publication

Abstract

A peer-reviewed journal preserves the quality of evidence in the literature by ensuring the manuscripts and research submitted is reliable and valid. For an article to be published, it must be of significance to the profession and body of evidence, have no flaws in the methodologies, contain suitable and complete statistical analyses, and appropriately interpreted results. Peer reviewers are experts whose role is to determine the quality of the research and how it is reported, protecting the profession and the public via the evidence on which it stands. The genesis of reporting guidelines can be found in medicine’s effort to bring the quality of research methods in line with expected standards. Reporting guidelines build in quality control, requiring authors to clearly lay out the methodologies of how their research has been designed and conducted, and assisting peer reviewers in the standardized assessment of manuscripts. These reporting guidelines or “checklists” have become mainstream over the last 20 years as the means for upholding ethical, reliable, and valid research in health professions research. Reporting guidelines are simply the means for authors to easily demonstrate that their research was designed and performed in a valid manner, and that their findings are therefore reliable.