Reporting quality of animal studies published in journals listed in ULAKBIM TR index: a systematic review on compliance to the ARRIVE guidelines

Abstract

Transparent reporting of animal studies is key to ensure reproducibility. The primary guideline for reporting animal studies is the ARRIVE (Animal Research: Reporting of In Vivo Experiments). We aimed to evaluate the compliance to the updated ARRIVE guidelines (version 2.0, date 2020) in animal studies published in journals indexed by the Turkish Academic Network and Information Centre (ULAKBIM TR Index). This was a retrospective analysis of reporting quality of animal studies published in journals listed in ULAKBIM TR Index between January 2010 and August 2021. The percentage of articles that fully reported each " of the ARRIVE Essential 10: Compliance Questionnaire was calculated, and effects of journal- and article-related factors were evaluated. Totally, 235 articles published in 89 journals were included into the analysis. The mean percentage of fully reported items was 59.1%+/- 10.9%, the least reported items being those related with bias - "blinding", "allocation to study groups", "assessment of statistical assumptions", "excluded animals", and "sample size calculation" (0.9%-10.6%). The journal's publisher, frequency, language, being indexed in the Science Citation Index Expanded, and the ratio of animal studies had no significant effect on this percentage (p>0.05). However, journals supporting the ARRIVE guidelines had significantly and higher compliance (62.1 %+/- 10.1% vs. 58.2%+/- 11.0% for supporters and non-supporters, respectively; p=0.017, 95%CI -7.0 to-0.7). Articles published after 2015 had higher compliance to the ARRIVE guidelines than those published previously (60.9%+/- 10.4% vs. 57.9%+/- 11.1%, respectively; p=0.037, 95%CI -5.8 to -0.2). Although progress has been made, compliance to the ARRIVE guidelines is still low in animal studies published in journals listed in ULAKBIM TR Index-Turkey's scientific journal database that covers over 800 peer-review journals. In order to increase the reporting quality and reproducibility of animal studies, it is imperative to raise awareness among researchers and journals, and to enforce the ARRIVE guidelines in editorial policy of journals.