Update on the endorsement of CONSORT by high impact factor journals: a survey of journal “Instructions to Authors” in 2014

Table 1 Mentions of CONSORT, ICMJE, and trial registration in the “Instructions to Authors” from the journals¹

		2014	2007 ²	2003³
		(2012 IF)	(2006 IF)	(2001 IF)
		N = 168 (%)	N = 165 (%)	N = 166 (%)
CONSORT Statement		106 (63 %)	62 (38 %)	36 (22 %)
	Required	44 (42 %)	23 (37 %)	8^a
	Recommended	56 (53 %)	39 (63 %)	26
	Can’t tell^*	6 (6 %)	-	2
	Submit with checklist	38 (36 %)	17 (27 %)	nc
	Submit with flow diagram	39 (37 %)	nc	nc
Web address		84 (79 %)	46^b (58 %)	15 + 1^c (44 %)
Checklist		73 (69 %)	nc	nc
Flow diagram		57 (54 %)	nc	nc
2010 Statement		18 (17 %)	nr	nr
2010 E&E		0 (0 %)	nr	nr
2001 Statement		11 (10 %)	18 (29 %)	16 (44 %)
2001 E&E		0 (0 %)	1 (2 %)	3 (8 %)
1996 Statement		2 (2 %)	6^d (10 %)	9^d (17 %)
No specific reference/document indicated		5 (5 %)	0 (0 %)	0 (0 %)
ICMJE		130 (77 %)	69 (42 %)	72 (43 %)
Web address		117 (90 %)	48 (70 %)	23 (40 %)
Up-to-date reference^**		41 (32 %)	3 (4 %)	27 (38 %)
Obsolete reference		59 (45 %)	15 (22 %)	41 (57 %)
Other		4 (3 %)	nc	nc
No specific reference		3 (2 %)	6 (9 %)	4 (6 %)
Trial registration		106 (63 %)	61 (37 %)	nc
	Required	78 (74 %)	44 (72 %)	nc
	Recommended	25 (24 %)	17 (28 %)	-
	Can’t tell	3 (3 %)	-	-
ICMJE (only)		27 (25 %)	23 (38 %)	nc
ClinicalTrials.gov (only)		9 (8 %)	9 (15 %)	nc
WHO International Clinical Trial Portal (only)		12 (11 %)	4 (7 %)	nc
Cites combination of the above		41 (39 %)	10 (16 %)	-
Other registry		3 (3 %)	-	-
None		14 (13 %)	-	-

IF impact factor, CONSORT Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials, nc not collected, nr not relevant, E&E Explanation and Elaboration, ICMJE International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, WHO World Health Organization
¹Bolded rows are the denominator for the numbers immediately following
²Data from Hopewell et al. [9]
³Data from Altman [8]
^aCollapsed from Altman [8]: Required: required (3), must (5). Recommended: should (18), strongly encouraged (1), encouraged (2), recommended (2), please (2), may wish to consider (1). Can’t tell: see (1) and no directive comment (1).
^bWeb address was misspelled (n = 2)
^cReference to JAMA website
^dReference to an article citing the 1996 CONSORT Statement (n = 1)
^*Language ambiguous
^**For 2014, this was any clear reference to the “Recommendations for the conduct, reporting, editing, and publication of scholarly work in medical journals”; for 2007 and 2003 this was a > 2000 word article entitled “Uniform requirements for manuscripts submitted to biomedical journals: writing and editing for biomedical publication”

ISSN: 1745-6215