Enhancing the QUAlity and Transparency of health Research: The EQUATOR Network

每年，科学期刊都会发表数万篇描述健康研究结果的文章。然而，这些文章的读者和使用者，包括科学家、临床医生、系统审稿人，以及越来越多的患者，发现这些文章中的许多文章很难或无法使用：许多文章没有提供足够的信息，只提供选定的信息，或者以非常不清楚和误导的方式提供信息。所有这些使得许多纸张无法使用。以这种令人不满意的方式描述的研究的努力和金钱是浪费的。提高研究论文的完整性、准确性和清晰度的一个简单解决方案是遵循报告准则。存在着许多指导方针，为报告某一特定类型的卫生研究的论文应当处理什么问题提供了逐步的指导。这些准则是从用户的角度制定的，并指导作者提供用户所需的最低信息，以评估研究完成得如何，决定研究结果是否与他/她自己的工作相关，以及是否需要复制研究(即。实际做了什么，对谁做了什么，评估了什么，如何评估的，这些发现是如何分析的，以及它们在其他类似研究的背景下实际意味着什么)。尽管存在许多好的指导方针，但它们仍然没有被卫生科学家广泛了解和使用。最近对出版物的评论一致表明，大部分研究文章中缺少重要信息。在这个信息过载的时代，有一个高质量的资源很重要，在那里你可以很容易地找到你需要的所有相关信息。2008年，我们启动了赤道方案，旨在提高卫生研究的质量和透明度。该方案最重要的产出之一是一个免费的在线卫生研究报告图书馆，它汇集了所有已出版的报告准则和其他有用的工具，这些工具有助于编写和出版研究报告，从而改善向读者提供的信息。EQUATOR团队教育科学家和期刊编辑，他们在保障已发表论文的质量方面发挥着关键作用，以增加他们对应该在研究论文中包含什么以及如何最好地实现这一目标的知识。EQUATOR还帮助科学家制定高质量的报告准则，并开展调查研究报告中的问题的研究。我们的建议概述了未来三年将进一步推进该计划的具体成果和活动。主要成果包括：改进图书馆的结构和内容；开发独特的EQUATOR“签名”课程，支持严格的研究报告；编写一份手册，以制定强有力的报告准则；一份研究报告，概述选定的重点期刊使用报告准则的情况；以及一个评估卫生研究专业科学论文报告质量的数据库。医学期刊发表了大量的研究报告，由于关键的遗漏，这些报告的价值有限。这种浪费是可以避免的。EQUATOR的网站和培训可以比作一个库存充足、促销良好的超市，在那里你可以得到写作和发表一流研究论文所需的一切。了解研究论文中需要包含的内容，这些内容清晰且易于使用，也可以改善未来研究的设计。我们的工作有助于提高已发表医学研究的可用性和有用性，并帮助科学家成为杰出的研究传播者。

Every year scientific journals publish tens of thousands of articles describing findings from health research studies. However, readers and users of these articles, who include scientists, clinicians, systematic reviewers, and increasingly also patients, find many of these articles very difficult or impossible to use: many articles do not present enough information, present only selected information, or present information in a very unclear and misleading way. All this makes many papers unusable. The effort and money devoted to the research described in such an unsatisfactory manner is wasted. A simple solution to improve the completeness, accuracy and clarity of research papers is to follow reporting guidelines. Many guidelines exist that provide step by step guidance of what should be addressed in a paper reporting on a particular type of health research. These guidelines have been developed from the users' perspective and guide authors to provide minimum information a user needs to assess how well was the study done, to decide if the findings are relevant to his/her own work, and if needed to reproduce the study (ie. what was actually done and to whom, what was assessed and how, how were these findings analysed, and what they actually mean in the context of other similar studies). Although many good guidelines exist they are still not widely known and used by health scientists. Recent reviews of publications consistently show that essential information is missing from a large proportion of research articles. In this time of massive information overload it is important to have a single good quality resource where you can easily find all relevant information you need. In 2008, we launched the EQUATOR programme that aims to enhance the quality and transparency of health research. One of the most important outputs of this programme is a free online Library for Health Research Reporting that brings together all published reporting guidelines and other helpful tools that aid the writing and publication of research reports and thus improve the information provided to readers. The EQUATOR team educates scientist and journal editors, who play a key role in safeguarding the quality of published papers, to increase their knowledge of what should be included in research papers and how best to achieve it. EQUATOR also helps scientists to develop high quality reporting guidelines and conducts research investigating problems in research reporting. Our proposal outlines specific deliverables and activities for the next three years that will further advance the programme. The main outputs include: improved structure and content of our Library; development of unique EQUATOR 'signature' courses supporting rigorous research reporting; compilation of a manual for the development of robust reporting guidelines; a research report summarising the use of reporting guidelines by selected priority journals; and a database of evaluations of reporting quality of scientific papers across health research specialties. Medical journals publish large numbers of research reports that are of limited value because of crucial omissions. This waste is avoidable. The EQUATOR website and training can be compared to a well stocked and well promoted supermarket where you can get everything you need to write and publish first class research papers. The knowledge of what needs to be included in research papers that are clear and easy to use also improves the design of future research studies. Our work helps to improve usability and usefulness of published medical research and helps scientists to become outstanding research communicators.