STARD guideline in diagnostic accuracy tests: perspective from a systematic reviewer

Assessment of Adherence of Diagnostic Accuracy Studies Published in Radiology Journals to STARD Statement Indexed in Web of Science, PubMed & Scopus in 2015

RATIONALE AND OBJECTIVE

The objective of this study is to evaluate the methodological adherence of diagnostic accuracy studies published in radiology journals, which were indexed in different databases with the STARD standard guide 2015.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

The different databases were searched in order to find suitable journals. Among 84 English radiology journals, 31 journal were selected randomly. In order to find the articles, the same search fields and search terms were used. All the items of STARD checklist 2015 were considered to take in to account in assessment of the adherence of the articles to the standard. Total STARD score for each article was calculated by summing the number of reported items.

RESULTS

151 articles from 31 journals were evaluated to check the adherence of their structure to STARD standard. Based on the results the articles had the most adherence with the STARD standard in material and method part the item of participants, discussion section, and title or abstract. On the contrary, most of the articles were not adhere to other information which are new items in STARD 2015. Among radiology diagnostic accuracy articles only one article (0.66%) had a registration number and 10 (6.62%) articles had a link to full study protocol. More than 60% of articles adhered to the ethics (69.54%) and source of support (63.58%).

CONCLUSIONS

The radiology diagnostic accuracy studies were adhered to 69.45% STARD items, which shows an improvement in reporting the diagnostic accuracy articles in comparison to previous studies.