Accepted Manuscript Title: Basic Statistical Reporting for Articles Published in Biomedical Journals: Classic methods paper Author: Claire Hale PII: DOI: Reference:

S0020-7489(14)00255-7 http://dx.doi.org/doi:10.1016/j.ijnurstu.2014.09.007 NS 2448

To appear in: Received date: Revised date: Accepted date:

28-10-2013 14-8-2014 8-9-2014

Please cite this article as: Hale, C.,Basic Statistical Reporting for Articles Published in Biomedical Journals: Classic methods paper, International Journal of Nursing Studies (2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijnurstu.2014.09.007 This is a PDF file of an unedited manuscript that has been accepted for publication. As a service to our customers we are providing this early version of the manuscript. The manuscript will undergo copyediting, typesetting, and review of the resulting proof before it is published in its final form. Please note that during the production process errors may be discovered which could affect the content, and all legal disclaimers that apply to the journal pertain.

Commentary

Basic Statistical Reporting for Articles Published in Biomedical Journals: Classic methods paper1

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This scenario may be familiar to some - you have finished your research, analysed the data and finally have a paper ready for publication. You send it off hopefully to the journal with the highest impact factor you can find and confidently expect positive reviews and fast publication after all your finding have the potential to change the world – well the nursing world anyway! Instead, it comes back from the editor a few weeks later with, if not an absolute rejection, a list of information you have not provided and changes that have to be made – at best a major revision. However you could probably have avoided all this disappointment and further work, if you had read and adhered to the appropriate reporting guidelines, which specify what information should be provided in published papers reporting the results of research studies.

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A recommendation to adhere to reporting guidelines is becoming increasingly common in journal instructions to authors and the International Journal of Nursing Studies (IJNS) was one of the first in the nursing field to endorse them. The imperative to adhere to reporting guidelines is not the latest nail in the coffin for originality and creativity, it is an aid to enhance the quality and transparency of research. Adherence to reporting guidelines makes it easier for readers to assess the quality of published research, makes it easier for others to reproduce the research and importantly reduces waste from research; unless research is adequately reported, the time and effort taken in conducting it is wasted (Glasziou et al. 2014)

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Reporting guidelines cover all kinds of research designs and sorts of data collected. Arguably the most well known and well used are the CONSORT guidelines for reporting randomized controlled trials and the COREQ guidelines for reporting studies involving qualitative research interviews and focus groups. But there are many more guidelines, the most important of which are available on the EQUATOR network webpage (www.equator.network.org). In this issue of the IJNS we reproduce the SAMPL guidelines, compiled by Tom Lang and Doug Altman (2013) which provide basic statistical reporting standards for articles published in biomedical journals. In this paper the authors provide IJNS readers with:

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This commentary refers to Thomas A. Lang and Douglas G. Altman, Basic Statistical Reporting for Articles Published in Biomedical Journals: The “Statistical Analyses and Methods in the Published Literature” or The SAMPL Guidelines”, International Journal of Nursing Studies, DOI number” (should be replaced by issue and page nos when compiled into an issue)

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Guiding principles for reporting statistical methods and results



General principles for reporting statistical methods



General principles for reporting statistical results for numbers and descriptive statistics, risk, rates and ratios, hypothesis tests and various analyses.

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The publication of these excellent reporting guidelines complements the short series of papers by our statistical editor, Jason Beckstead (Beckstead 2013a, 2013b, 2014a, 2014b). We hope you will find them useful. REFERENCES

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Beckstead, J.W. 2013a. On measurements and their quality: Paper 1: Reliability – History, issues and procedures. International Journal of Nursing Studies, 50 (7), 968-973.

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Beckstead, J.W. 2013b. On measurements and their quality: Paper 2: Random measurement error and the power of statistical tests. International Journal of Nursing Studies, 50 (10), 1416-1422.

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Beckstead, J.W. 2014a. On measurements and their quality: Paper 3: Post hoc pooling and errors of discreteness. International Journal of Nursing Studies, 51 (3), 488-494.

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Beckstead, J.W. 2014b. On measurements and their quality. Paper 4: Verbal anchors and the number of response options in rating scales. International Journal of Nursing Studies, 51 (5), 807-814.

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GLASZIOU, P.et al. 2014. Reducing waste from incomplete or unusable reports of biomedical research. The Lancet, 383 (9913), p. pp.267-276.

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LANG, T.andD. ALTMAN (2013) Basic statistical reporting for articles published in clinical medical journals: the SAMPL Guidelines. IN SMART P, M.H., POLDERMAN A (EDS) (Ed.) Science Editors' Handbook. European Association of Science Editors,.

Professor Claire Hale

University of Leeds, UK [email protected]

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Basic statistical reporting for articles published in biomedical journals: classic methods paper.

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