Reporting health and medical research

Abstract

The use of the best available evidence to inform patient care in evidence-based medicine is reliant on the accurate, complete and transparent reporting of health and medical research. Without a complete and transparent account of what was done and what was found during a research study, findings cannot be fully understood, replicated, assessed for validity and applicability, and used to inform clinical and policy decisions. For over 50 years, problems of incomplete and poor reporting of research have been widely documented across health and medical research. Unusable research reports contribute to avoidable research waste through the inability to appraise and synthesise research and can detrimentally impact patient care through incorrect implementation of research findings. Because of this, complete and transparent reporting of research is a researcher’s moral and ethical responsibility to maximise the usefulness and positive impact of their research. Our objective in this article is to provide an overview of reporting guidelines and other key tools available to increase transparent reporting and to outline relevant challenges and potential solutions to their use by research stakeholders.

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