• BMJ quality & safety · Jun 2015

    Review Comparative Study

    The effect of the SQUIRE (Standards of QUality Improvement Reporting Excellence) guidelines on reporting standards in the quality improvement literature: a before-and-after study.

    • Victoria Howell, Amanda Eva Schwartz, James Daniel O'Leary, and Conor Mc Donnell.
    • Department of Anesthesia and Pain Medicine, Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, Ontario, Canada Department of Anesthesia, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
    • BMJ Qual Saf. 2015 Jun 1; 24 (6): 400-6.

    BackgroundThe SQUIRE (Standards of QUality Improvement Reporting Excellence) guidelines were developed to improve the reporting of quality improvement (QI) projects. The effect of the guidelines on the completeness of reporting in the QI literature is unknown.ObjectivesOur primary objective was to determine if the completeness of reporting in the QI literature has been improved[OUP_CE13] since the introduction of the SQUIRE guidelines.MethodsWe performed a before-and-after evaluation of QI articles selected from four prominent journals of healthcare quality. Twenty-five articles published in each of two time periods (2006-2008 and 2010-2011) were confirmed to be QI projects using a standardised definition and were independently evaluated by two investigators as an interim evaluation of a planned larger sample. Articles were assessed using 50 statements of the SQUIRE guidelines, and the overall change in the completeness of reporting between the two groups was determined. The value of p<0.05 was considered significant.ResultsBoth groups were similar in characteristics. There was no significant difference in the mean (SD) number of SQUIRE statements completed by authors before and after publication of the SQUIRE guidelines, 20.2 (5.0) versus 20.4 (7.0), p=0.9. The study was stopped early due to the absence of any significant trend in the completeness of reporting.DiscussionThere was no overall improvement observed in the completeness of reporting of QI projects after the publication of the SQUIRE guidelines, and the study was stopped early. There is potential for improvement in reporting standards, particularly for those guideline items or statements specific to QI projects.Published by the BMJ Publishing Group Limited. For permission to use (where not already granted under a licence) please go to http://group.bmj.com/group/rights-licensing/permissions.

      Pubmed     Full text   Copy Citation     Plaintext  

      Add institutional full text...

    Notes

     
    Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?
    300 characters remaining
    help        
    You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
    • Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as *italics*, _underline_ or **bold**.
    • Superscript can be denoted by <sup>text</sup> and subscript <sub>text</sub>.
    • Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines 1. 2. 3., hyphens - or asterisks *.
    • Links can be included with: [my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
    • Images can be included with: ![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
    • For footnotes use [^1](This is a footnote.) inline.
    • Or use an inline reference [^1] to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document [^1]: This is a long footnote..

    hide…