Improving the Quality of Clinical Neuropsychological Research: Mandatory Use of Reporting Guidelines.

Neuropsychology related research has grown steadily, and the Editors and Editorial Board of Archives of Clinical Neuropsychology believe it is imperative that we support the highest quality research possible. We have a mandate to publish neuropsychological research that is of sufficient quality to be utilized by healthcare providers and health system delivery decision makers. More than 500 journals have endorsed the recommendations of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE, 1997) that reporting guidelines be adopted to increase the likelihood that journals publish accurate, clear, and unbiased articles. Adoption of reporting guidelines has become a standard across medicine and healthcare related journals when submitting research for publication. Neuropsychology journals have been slow to adopt the guidelines compared with other specialty healthcare journals, and the Archives of Clinical Neuropsychology will be among the first to require the use of reporting guidelines for all original empirical article submissions. Reporting guidelines were developed in response to research beginning in the 1970s that found articles published in medical journals, as well as PubMed more generally, failed to include sufficient information for the research study and it’s statistical analyses to be replicated or independently evaluated (e.g., Altman, 1995; Pocock, Hughes, & Lee, 1987). Increased emphasis on meta-analyses and systematic reviews within the healthcare research literature identified vast discrepancies across published studies in the quality of the methodological details that were reported (Chan & Altman, 2005). The discrepancies in what aspects of studies were published highlighted the widespread research reporting deficiencies throughout the healthcare literature. This led to the decision by biomedical and health research journals to adopt the use of reporting guidelines. Reporting guidelines are documents that help authors report critical aspects of a research study. The guidelines were developed by experts in a research field, and typically included critical elements of a scientific study, such as the research methods, measures, statistical analyses and conclusions. These elements are commonly provided in a checklist for authors to review during manuscript preparation and submission. Each reporting guideline checklist lists key elements for a complete and clear account of a study’s methods and findings. For example, empirical research reports must contain enough information for readers to understand how the research was designed and conducted. The information should include such things as the eligibility criteria for participants, variable definitions, details of the measurements used, analytical techniques, main results, and a discussion that includes clear statements regarding the limitations of the study. Systematic reviews and meta-analytic articles must include the rationale for the review and details about the literature search strategy, among other items. The guidelines are intended to facilitate critical analysis of research results during the peer-review process, allow clinicians to determine the applicability of published results to specific clinical situations, and enable researchers to replicate and extend results. Reporting guidelines have been developed for most types of research, and include research designs common to neuropsychology research (e.g., observational studies, diagnostic accuracy, systematic reviews, meta-analyses, nonrandomized evaluations of behavioral health interventions, and qualitative studies). These guidelines have the expressed purpose to improve the accuracy, transparency, and completeness of published papers. A complete list of reporting guidelines is available from the EQUATOR Network (http://www.equator-network.org/) and the U.S. Library of Medicine (2016).