Characteristics of included studies
| First author | Country | Year | Journal | Research field | Number of articles included | Timeframe | Number of STARD items evaluated | Mean STARD score (% items evaluated) | Authors’ conclusions on quality of reporting |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Areia16 | Portugal | 2010 | Endoscopy | Endoscopy | 110 | 1998–2008 | 25 | 12.9 (52) | ‘Recent publications in diagnostic endoscopy achieve only medium quality’ |
| Coppus17 | The Netherlands | 2006 | Fertility and Sterility | Reproductive medicine | 51 | 1999 vs 2004 | 25 | 12.3 (49) | ‘The quality of reporting in articles on test accuracy in reproductive medicine is poor to mediocre’ |
| Fontela18 | Canada | 2009 | PlosONE | Commercial tests for tuberculosis, HIV, malaria | 90 | 2004–2006 | 25 | 13.6 (54) | ‘Diagnostic studies on tuberculosis, malaria and HIV commercial tests [...] were often poorly reported’ |
| Freeman19 | UK | 2009 | European Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology and Reproductive Biology | Non-invase prenatal diagnostic tests for Rhesus D genotyping | 27 | 1996–2006 | 25 | 9.1 (36) | ‘Articles have consistent weaknesses in their reporting’ |
| Gómez Sáez20 | Spain | 2009 | Medicina Clinica | Any research field, 4 Spanish journals | 58 | 2004–2007 | 25 | 12.0 (48) | ‘Despite efforts by different groups of research to achieve higher methodological quality in the diagnostics field, on average, they follow less than half of the items proposed by STARD’ |
| Johnson21 | UK | 2007 | Ophthalmology | Optical coherence tomography (OCT) in glaucoma. | 30 | 2001–2006 | 25* | 13.2 (53) | ‘Quality of reporting of the diagnostic accuracy of OCT in glaucoma is suboptimal.’ |
| Lumbreras22 | Spain | 2006 | Gaseta Sanitària | Genetic-molecular research. | 44 | 2002–2005 | 24 | 9.8 (41) | ‘The articles on genetic-molecular diagnostic tests (...) fail to satisfy most of the quality requirements assembled in the STARD proposal’ |
| Paranjothy23 | UK | 2007 | Journal of Glaucoma | Scanning laser polarimetry (SLP) for diagnosing glaucoma. | 20 | 1997–2000 vs 2004–2005 | 25* | 13.5 (54) | ‘The quality of reporting of diagnostic accuracy tests for glaucoma with SLP is suboptimal’ |
| Rama24 | UK | 2006 | Clinical Orthopaedics and Related Research | Orthopedics. | 37 | 2002–2004 | 25 | 14.2 (57) | ‘Current standards of reporting of diagnostic accuracy studies in orthopaedic journals are suboptimal.’ |
| Selman15 | UK | 2011 | BMC Women's Health | Obstetrics and gynaecology. | 300 | 1977–2007 | 25 | 12.5 (50) | ‘The reporting of included studies in this review overall was poor.’ |
| Shunmugam25 | UK | 2006 | Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science | Heidelberg retina tomography (HRT) for glaucoma detection. | 29 | 1995–2004 | 25* | 14.3 (57) | ‘The quality of reporting of diagnostic accuracy tests for glaucoma with HRT is suboptimal.’ |
| Siddiqui26 | UK | 2005 | British Journal of Ophthalmology | Ophthalmology. | 16 | 2002 | 25 | 11.6 (47) | ‘The current standards of reporting of diagnostic accuracy tests are highly variable.’ |
| Smidt9 | The Netherlands | 2006 | Neurology | Six general and six disease/discipline-specific journals. | 265 | 2000 vs 2004 | 25 | 12.8 (51) | ‘After publication of STARD, the quality of reporting of diagnostic accuracy studies has slightly improved. There is still room for improvement.’ |
| Wilczynski10 | Canada | 2008 | Radiology | Twelve journals on radiology, internal medicine or general medicine. | 240 | 2001–2002 vs 2004–2005 | 13 | 8.2 (63) | ‘We found low rates of adherence to the STARD checklist items.’ |
| Zafar27 | UK | 2008 | Clinical and Experimental Ophthalmology | Diabetic retinopathy (DR) screening. | 76 | 1995–2006 | 25 | 9.9 (40) | ‘The quality of diagnostic accuracy reports in DR screening is suboptimal.’ |
| Zintzaras28 | Greece | 2012 | BMC Musculoskeletal Disorders | Anti-CCP2 for the diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis. | 103 | 2003–2010 | 22 | 14.0 (64) | ‘The overall reporting quality was relatively good but needs further improvement.’ |
*One of the 25 evaluated STARD-items was not applicable to all the articles included in this study.
BMC, British Medical Council; DR, diabetic retinopathy; STARD, Standards for Reporting of Diagnostic Accuracy Studies.