2014 Volume 40 Issue 3 Pages 155-165
In articles on the Japanese Journal of Behavior Therapy, the reporting quality of research methods and results is often insufficient, even though researchers are responsible for the completeness and accuracy of their reports. This issue can be resolved through the use of reporting guidelines such as the CONSORT (Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials) statement, which can also help researchers design study protocols better. The present paper attempts to enhance understanding of CONSORT recommendations, in order to improve the content of clinical trial protocols of nonpharmacological treatments. It focuses on 5 critical CONSORT requirements (i.e., trial registration, primary outcome, harms, precise details of interventions, and sample size calculations), and provide a detailed explanation as well as several examples from published papers for each.
