Editorial policies of hematology and oncology journals: an analysis of author instructions

2011 Madrid

M E¹, W O², Grambauer N³, Antes G⁴, von Elm E⁵

¹German Cochrane Center, Institute of Medical Biometry and Medical Statistics & Pediatric Hematology & Oncology, Center for Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, University Medical Center, Freiburg, Germany

²Kleijnen Systematic Reviews, York, UK

³Institute of Medical Biometry and Medical Statistics, University Medical Center Freiburg, Germany

⁴German Cochrane Center, Institute of Medical Biometry and Medical Statistics, University Medical Center, Freiburg, Germany

⁵Cochrane Switzerland, CHUV and University of Lausanne, Switzerland & German Cochrane Center, Institute of Medical Biometry and Medical Statistics, University Medical Center, Freiburg, Germany

Background:

Complete and accurate reporting is a prerequisite for inclusion of original studies in systematic reviews. The continued debate about ethics and quality of biomedical publishing has led to recommendations aiming to enhance reporting quality and good publication practice. However, it is unclear to what extent these recommendations have been implemented by specialty journals.

Objectives:

We analyzed whether specific recommendations were included in author instructions of hematology and oncology journals and whether their endorsement was associated with journal characteristics.

Methods:

We identified 167 unique journals in the subject categories 'Hematology’ and 'Oncology’ of the 2008 Journal Citation Report publishing original research articles. From March to May 2010 we extracted information regarding endorsement of the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts (URM) of the ICMJE and of five major reporting guidelines such as the CONSORT statement, disclosure of conflicts of interest and trial registration from the journals' online author instructions. Two investigators collected data independently. We calculated a global mixed model for endorsement of editorial policies accounting for heterogeneity by publisher, followed by separate multivariate logistic regression models.

Results:

The URM were mentioned in the author instructions of 89 journals (53.3%). Endorse-ment of reporting guidelines was low: CONSORT was referred to most frequently (42 journals; 25.1%); each of the other four reporting guidelines were mentioned in less than 10% of author instructions. 132 journals (79%) explicitly required authors to disclose conflicts of interest, and 55 (32.9%) recommended or required trial registration. After model selection, only journal impact factor had a highly significant positive association with endorsement of these policies in the individual models (see Table1).

Conclusion:

Author instructions of specialty journals serving the hematology and oncology research community do not yet reflect specific recommendations aiming to enhance the quality of biomedical publications. Journal impact factor is positively associated with endorsement of these policies.