The Cochrane Methodology Register (CMR) is a bibliography of publications that report on methods used in the conduct of controlled trials. It includes journal articles, books, and conference proceedings, and the content is sourced from MEDLINE and hand searches. CMR contains studies of methods used in reviews and more general methodological studies that could be relevant to anyone preparing systematic reviews. CMR records contain the title of the article, information on where it was published (bibliographic details), and, in some cases, a summary of the article. They do not contain the full text of the article.
The CMR was produced by the Cochrane UK, until 31st May 2012. There are currently no plans to reinstate the CMR and it is not receiving updates.* If you have any queries, please contact the Cochrane Community Service Team (support@cochrane.org).
The Publishers, John Wiley & Sons Ltd, thanks Update Software for the continued use of their data formats in the Cochrane Methodology Register (CMR).
*Last update in January 2019.
| Title | Quality of reporting of observational longitudinal research. |
| Authors | Tooth L, Ware R, Bain C, Purdie DM, Dobson A |
| Source | American Journal of Epidemiology |
| Date of publication | 2005 |
| Volume | 161 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 280-8 |
| Abstract | Observational longitudinal research is particularly useful for assessing etiology and prognosis and for providing evidence for clinical decision making. However, there are no structured reporting requirements for studies of this design to assist authors, editors, and readers. The authors developed and tested a checklist of criteria related to threats to the internal and external validity of observational longitudinal studies. The checklist criteria concerned recruitment, data collection, biases, and data analysis and descriptive issues relevant to study rationale, study population, and generalizability. Two raters independently assessed 49 randomly selected articles describing stroke research published from 1999 to 2003 in six journals: American Journal of Epidemiology, Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, Stroke, Annals of Neurology, Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, and American Journal of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation. On average, 17 of the 33 checklist criteria were reported. Criteria describing the study design were better reported than those related to internal validity. No relation was found between study type (etiologic or prognostic) or word count and quality of reporting. A flow diagram for summarizing participant flow through a study was developed. Editors and authors should consider using a checklist and flow diagram when reporting on observational longitudinal research. |
| CMR keywords | CMR: Review methodology - critical appraisal - scales and checklists - non-trials;CMRA3 |
| Correspondence address | School of Population Health, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. L.tooth@sph.uq.edu.au |
| Reference type | Journal article |