Reporting guidelines: Increasing standards in clinical research reporting

Introduction
Transparent and clear reporting of research is important to enable readers to understand how a study is conducted and to assess the validity and reliability of the study findings. Failure to adequately report research findings distorts the reality of how the research was actually conducted. It prevents clinicians from applying effective interventions and can result in considerable amounts of money invested in health research being wasted.1 Incomplete or inadequate reporting of health research also has far reaching ethical implications as the individuals who consent to participate in research, and agencies that provide funding support for these investigations, do so with the understanding that the work will make a contribution to the existing knowledge.2 Clearly, new knowledge that is not disseminated, or knowledge that is disseminated in a biased way, is not making a true contribution.