Reporting guidelines are recommendations to help write up research clearly.
Your research will be used by people from different disciplines and backgrounds for decades to come. Reporting guidelines are community-created recommendations for describing what you did and what you found so that everyone can understand, repeat, apply, and synthesise your work. Although they recommend information to include in your manuscript, they don’t dictate how to order that information.
Most reporting guidelines consist of the full guidance (sometimes called an Explanation and Elaboration document) and a checklist. The full guidance provides detailed explanations and examples for each item, and the checklist allows you to demonstrate adherence to editors.
You can use reporting guidelines throughout your research process. However you use reporting guidelines, please cite them.
Writing manuscripts
Write confidently using a reporting guideline to quickly turn a blank page into a thorough and impactful manuscript.
Checking
Use a reporting checklist to demonstrate to an editor or peer reviewer that you have included everything. Many journals require completed checklists at submission.
Writing applications
Reporting guidelines can help you write funding applications, ethics applications, and protocols, but they won’t make design decisions for you!
Reporting guidelines are neither design nor quality appraisal tools.
Although reporting guidelines recommend information to include when writing up research, they do not mandate how to design research. Similarly, when reviewing literature, although you can use reporting guidelines to assess whether a manuscript is well reported, you cannot use them to appraise whether that study is well designed.
Key information
Reporting guideline acronym
STARD 2015
Provided for
Studies of diagnostic accuracy.
Relevant URLs (full-text if available)
The full-text of the STARD 2015 reporting guideline for diagnostic accuracy studies is available to download as aPDF file.
PubMed ID
Downloads
Bibliographic reference
Commonly used reporting guidelines
| STROBE | Observational Studies |
| PRISMA | Systematic reviews of trials |
| PRISMA-P | Systematic review protocols |
| CONSORT | Randomised trials |
| SPIRIT | Randomised trial protocols |
| SRQR | Qualitative Research |
| CARE | Case Reports |
| STARD | Diagnostic studies |
| TRIPOD+AI | Prediction Models |
| ARRIVE | Animal Research |
| SQUIRE | Quality Improvement |
| CHEERS | Economic Evaluations |
| Search all |
Bossuyt PM, Reitsma JB, Bruns DE, Gatsonis CA, Glasziou PP, Irwig L, LijmerJG Moher D, Rennie D, de Vet HCW, Kressel HY, Rifai N, Golub RM, Altman DG, Hooft L, Korevaar DA, Cohen JF, For the STARD Group. STARD 2015: An Updated List of Essential Items for Reporting Diagnostic Accuracy Studies.
This guideline was published simultaneously in 3 journals. You can read the guideline in any of these journals using the links below.
BMJ. 2015;351:h5527. PMID: 26511519
Radiology. 2015:151516. PMID: 26509226
Clinical Chemistry. 2015. pii: clinchem.2015.246280. PMID: 26510957
Additional information
Language
English
Availability in additional languages
STARD 2015
The updated STARD 2015 reporting guideline for diagnostic accuracy studies is available in Italian.
The STARD 2015 Checklist is available in Turkish (PDF).
STARD 2003
The following translations of the original STARD guideline published in 2003 are available: Chinese; Dutch; French; Italian; German; Spanish.
The Japanese translation of the STARD Statement is published in the Official Journal of the Japanese Society of Laboratory Medicine. 2004. 52(5):465-471.
The STARD 2003 Checklist is available inTurkish (PDF).
Study design
- Clinical trials
- Diagnostic and prognostic studies
- Experimental studies
- Observational studies
Clinical area
- No clinical specialty specified
Applies to the whole report or to individual sections of the report?
- Whole report
Reporting guideline website URL
Previous versions of this guideline / Guideline history
The STARD reporting guideline was originally published in 2003.
Bossuyt PM, Reitsma JB, Bruns DE, Gatsonis CA, Glasziou PP, Irwig LM, Lijmer JG, Moher D, Rennie D, de Vet HC. Towards complete and accurate reporting of studies of diagnostic accuracy: the STARD initiative. Standards for Reporting of Diagnostic Accuracy.
Clin Chem. 2003; 49(1):1-6. PMID: [12507953
](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12507953)BMJ. 2003; 326(7379):41-44. PMID: 12511463
Radiology. 2003; 226(1):24-28. PMID: 12511664
Ann Intern Med. 2003; 138(1):40-44. PMID: 12513043
Am J Clin Pathol. 2003; 119(1):18-22. PMID: 12520693
Clin Biochem. 2003; 36(1):2-7. PMID: 12554053
Clin Chem Lab Med. 2003; 41(1):68-73. PMID: 12636052
Explanation and elaboration
Bossuyt PM, Reitsma JB, Bruns DE, Gatsonis CA, Glasziou PP, Irwig LM, et al. The STARD statement for reporting studies of diagnostic accuracy: explanation and elaboration.
Clin Chem. 2003; 49(1):7-18. PMID: 12507954
Ann Intern Med. 2003; 138(1):W1-12. PMID: 12513067
Other
The STARD guideline developers have written a paper describing in detail the methods used in the updating process for this reporting guideline. The full-text of this paper is available at: Updating standards for reporting diagnostic accuracy: the development of STARD 2015
Additional Information
Objective of the STARD initiative
The objective of the STARD initiative is to improve the completeness and transparency of reporting of studies of diagnostic accuracy, to allow readers to assess the potential for bias in the study (internal validity) and to evaluate its generalisability (external validity).
April 2014: The STARD Group and the EQUATOR Network are working together to enhance the information available on this website about the STARD guideline and initiative.
November 2014: The STARD Group is working to update the STARD guideline. A consensus meeting was held in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, in September 2014 and a first draft updated checklist was prepared. Those interested in the process can contact the STARD initiative for more details.
October 2015: The updated STARD 2015 guideline was published.