At present, systematic reviews of animal experimental studies has become a new trend and an important way to synthesize the results of animal experimental studies, improve the conducting and reporting quality of animal experimental studies and provide references for the furture clinical research. However, there are many problems in the design and implementation process of published systematic reviews of animal experimental studies. Therefore, it is important to design a scientific and standard practical process to improve the quality of systematic reviews of animal experimental studies. In this paper, we developed a standard process for systematic reviews of animal experimental studies, in order to improve the quality of systematic reviews of animal experimental studies.
ObjectivesTo survey the current research situation, methodological and reporting quality of the systematic review/meta-analysis (SRs/MAs) of animal studies.MethodsPubMed, EMbase, BIOSIS Previews, CNKI, WanFang Data, CBM and VIP databases were searched to collect SRs/MAs of animal studies from inception to June 2016. Two reviewers independently screened literature, extracted data, a descriptive analysis was then conducted.ResultsA total of 609 SRs/MAs of animal studies were included, which were from 27 countries and published in 526 journals. Merely 36.8% (224/609) studies assessed the risk of bias in the original animal experiments. Less than 50% studies reported the method of literature selection (41.9%, 255/609), data abstraction (32.0%, 195/609) and study characteristics (41.2%, 251/609).ConclusionsThe published SRs/MAs of animal studies is poor in both methodological and reporting quality. Thus, we hope to improve awareness and actual use rates of these guidelines by basic medical researchers and journal editors, thereby improving the quality of animal experimental methods and reporting standards.
ObjectivesUsing the ARRIVE guidelines (Animal Research Reporting: In Vivo Experiments Guidelines) to carry out a retrospective study of the reporting quality of animal studies published in Chinese journals.MethodsWe searched databases including CNKI, WanFang Data, VIP and CBM to July, 2018. Four reviewers independently screened literatures and extracted data. The ARRIVE guidelines were used to assess reporting quality and the comparative analysis based on different published time.ResultsA total of 4 342 studies were included. About the cited frequency, 73.03% studies were ≤5, and merely 29.04% studies were published in journals of CSCD. The assessment results showed that the number of reported items with "low risk" in the ARRIVE guidelines, which have 20 items, that meaning 39 sub items, more than half of sub items (51.28%, 20/39) rated as "low risk" had a compliance rate of less than 50%. Among them, 65.00% (13/20) of sub items had a lower rate of compliance with "low risk" than 10%.ConclusionThe reporting quality of domestic animal studies is generally low. The coincidence rate of domestic animal studies has been improved to some extent in most of items after the ARRIVE guidelines published, however, some items of methodology, results and conclusions had problems with insufficient reporting. Therefore, we suggest that it is necessary to popularize the ARRIVE guidelines, advocate more researchers following the ARRIVE guidelines and promote endorsement of the ARRIVE Guideline by Chinese Journals to improve the design, implementation and reporting of animal experiments, and ultimately enhance the quality of animal studies.