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.
Version: STARD 2015 v1.1. This website shows the latest version of STARD, first published in 2015, and updated here for usability.
Journals endorsing STARD: 300+
Applicability criteria
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 |
Summary of guidance
Although you should describe all items below, you can decide how to order and prioritize items most relevant to your study, findings, context, and readership whilst keeping your writing concise. You can read how STARD was developed in the FAQs.
| Item name | What to write |
| Title or abstract | |
| 1. Identification as a study of diagnostic accuracy | Identification as a study of diagnostic accuracy using at least one measure of accuracy (such as sensitivity, specificity, predictive values, or AUC). |
| Abstract | |
| 2. Abstract | Structured summary of study design, methods, results and conclusions (for specific guidance, see STARD for Abstracts). |
| Introduction | |
| 3. Background | Scientific and clinical background, including the intended use and clinical role of the index test. |
| 4. Objectives | Study objectives and hypotheses. |
| Methods | |
| 5. Study design | Whether data collection was planned before the index test and reference standard were performed (prospective study) or after (retrospective study). |
| Participants | |
| 6. Eligibility criteria | Eligibility criteria. |
| 7. Identifying eligible participants | On what basis potentially eligible participants were identified (such as symptoms, results from previous tests, inclusion in registry). |
| 8. Setting, location, and dates | Where and when potentially eligible participants were identified (setting, location and dates). |
| 9. Consecutive, random or convenience series | Whether participants formed a consecutive, random or convenience series. |
| Test Methods | |
| 10. Index test & Reference standard | 10a. Index test 10b. Reference standard |
| 11. Reference standard rationale | Rationale for choosing the reference standard (if alternatives exist). |
| 12. Index test and reference standard cut-offs or categories | 12a. Definition of and rationale for test positivity cut-offs or result categories of the index test, distinguishing prespecified from exploratory. 12b. Definition of and rationale for test positivity cut-offs or result categories of the reference standard, distinguishing prespecified from exploratory. |
| 13. Information available to performers or readers of the index test and reference standard assessors | 13a. Whether clinical information and reference standard results were available to the performers or readers of the index test. 13b. Whether clinical information and index test results were available to the assessors of the reference standard. |
| Analysis | |
| 14. Analysis methods | Methods for estimating or comparing measures of diagnostic accuracy. |
| 15. Indeterminate results | How indeterminate index test or reference standard results were handled. |
| 16. Missing data | How missing data on the index test and reference standard were handled. |
| 17. Variability | Any analyses of variability in diagnostic accuracy, distinguishing prespecified from exploratory. |
| 18. Intended sample size | Intended sample size and how it was determined. |
| Results | |
| Participants | |
| 19. Participant flow diagram | Flow of participants, using a diagram. |
| 20. Baseline characteristics | Baseline demographic and clinical characteristics of participants. |
| 21a. Participants with and without the target condition | 21a. Distribution of severity of disease in those with the target condition. 21b. Distribution of alternative diagnoses in those without the target condition |
| 22. Time interval | Time interval and any clinical interventions between index test and reference standard. |
| Test Results | |
| 23. Index test and reference standard results | Cross tabulation of the index test results (or their distribution) by the results of the reference standard. |
| 24. Estimates of accuracy | Estimates of diagnostic accuracy and their precision (such as 95% CIs). |
| 25. Adverse events | Any adverse events from performing the index test or the reference standard. |
| Discussion | |
| 26. Limitations | Study limitations, including sources of potential bias, statistical uncertainty and generalisability. |
| 27. Implications for Practice | Implications for practice, including the intended use and clinical role of the index test. |
| Other information | |
| 28. Registration | Registration number and name of registry. |
| 29. Protocol | Where the full study protocol can be accessed. |
| 30. Funding | Sources of funding and other support; role of funders. |
Training and Support
The UK EQUATOR Centre runs training on how to write using reporting guidelines.
Medical test
Any method for collecting additional information about the current or future health status of a patient.
Index test
The test under evaluation.
Target condition
The disease or condition that the index test is expected to detect.
Clinical reference standard
The best available method for establishing the presence or absence of the target condition; a gold standard would be an error-free reference standard.
Sensitivity
Proportion of those with the target condition who test positive with the index test.
Specificity
Proportion of those without the target condition who test negative with the index test.
Intended use of the test
Whether the index test is used for diagnosis, screening, staging, monitoring, surveillance, prediction, prognosis, or other reasons.
Role of the test
The position of the index test relative to other tests for the same condition (for example, triage, replacement, add-on, new test).
Indeterminate results
Results that are neither positive or negative.
