Risk of bias in reports of in vivo research : a focus for improvement

Macleod, Malcolm R. and Lawson McLean, Aaron and Kyriakopoulou, Aikaterini and Serghiou, Stylianos and de Wilde, Arno and Sherratt, Nicki and Hirst, Theo and Hemblade, Rachel and Bahor, Zsanett and Nunes-Fonseca, Cristina and Potluru, Aparna and Thomson, Andrew and Baginskitae, Julija and Egan, Kieren and Vesterinen, Hanna and Currie, Gillian L. and Churilov, Leonid and Howells, David W. and Sena, Emily S. (2015) Risk of bias in reports of in vivo research : a focus for improvement. PLOS Biology, 13 (10). e1002273. ISSN 1544-9173 (https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.1002273)

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Abstract

The reliability of experimental findings depends on the rigour of experimental design. Here we show limited reporting of measures to reduce the risk of bias in a random sample of life sciences publications, significantly lower reporting of randomisation in work published in journals of high impact, and very limited reporting of measures to reduce the risk of bias in publications from leading United Kingdom institutions. Ascertainment of differences between institutions might serve both as a measure of research quality and as a tool for institutional efforts to improve research quality.

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