Strengthening the reporting of observational studies in epidemiology

Two papers setting out recommendations for the reporting of epidemiological research are published in this week's PLoS Medicine, along with several other journals.

The recommendations are the result of a 3 year international collaboration known as the STROBE (Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology) Initiative.

Much biomedical research is observational. The reporting of such research is often inadequate, which hampers the assessment of its strengths and weaknesses and of a study's generalisability. The recommendations are for what should be included in an accurate and complete report of an observational study.

The papers, with lead authors Jan Vandenbroucke, Matthias Egger and Erik von Elm, describe the development of and rationale for a 22 item checklist that relate to the title, abstract, introduction, methods, results, and discussion sections of articles. The checklist is intended for use by researchers, authors and editors during the publication of these articles but will also be of value to readers of these papers.