The EQUATOR UK Centre's Dr Iveta Simera introduced clinical trialists from around the world to reporting guidelines during the Global Health Trials Programme's Writing and Publication Skills Month this November.
Good and well-reported clinical research helps doctors make better decisions and results in better patient care. Researchers at the Centre for Statistics in Medicine, NDORMS are involved in developing reporting guidelines and checklists, which serve as shopping lists for the writing researcher.
Reporting guidelines ensure that every important detail is included in a research paper, making them fit for purpose. We recently reported the release of one such checklist for reporting clinical prediction models, TRIPOD.
The EQUATOR Network, whose UK Centre is also based at NDORMS, collates existing reporting guidelines and promotes them to researchers to improve the reliability and value of published health research. It teamed up with the Global Health Trials Programme to bring reporting guidelines to clinical trialists from around the world.
The Global Health Trials Programme is a global collaboration between research organisations working in clinical trials. It brings clinical trialists together to share knowledge on a web-based platform. The Programme celebrated good research communication in its Writing and Publication Skills Month in November 2015. Over the month, the Programme's Publication Skills Page has filled with great advice, resources, and Q&As with key people in publishing. A range of free online skills modules are also available.
Dr Simera presented a crash-course seminar in research waste, reproducibility, and how to use reporting guidelines. In the video above, she outlines the problems in the current health research literature and highlights the consequences of badly reporting research. She also explains how to use reporting guidelines to create a transparent, usable research paper, guaranteed to have impact. The seminar was presented as part of the Nuffield Department of Medicine's Tropical Medicine Seminar Series.
The Global Health Trials Programme is one of 30 member areas on the Global Health Network. This digital platform, endorsed by the WHO, aims to accelerate and streamline research by facilitating collaboration and resource sharing for global health. Clinical researchers are encouraged to visit the Network to join the clinical research community, share their experience, and benefit from others' guidance, experience, and expertise.