Endorsement

SPIRIT provides evidence-based guidance to facilitate the writing of protocols and improve the completeness of their content. High quality protocols can enable rigorous trial implementation, enhance the quality and efficiency of protocol review, and reduce the burden of avoidable protocol amendments. These benefits can translate into better, more transparent trials that incur less time and costs to conduct and review.

The impact of SPIRIT on the quality of clinical trial protocols depends on widespread endorsement and implementation by trial investigators, sponsors, funders, research ethics committees/institutional review boards, trial registries, journals, regulators, and educators. Empirical evidence supports the association between the endorsement of reporting guidelines and the quality of reporting in journal publications (Turner L et al, Syst Rev 2012;1:60).

Endorsement of the SPIRIT Statement can be given at 3 levels:

1. General statement of support;
2. Specific statement encouraging investigators to adhere to SPIRIT when they develop their protocols;
3. Explicit statement requiring that trial protocols adhere to SPIRIT. Active implementation of a strong endorsement policy has been shown to be most effective at promoting adherence to reporting guidelines such as CONSORT (Hopewell S et al, BMJ 2012;344:e4178).

Join the list of endorsers!

The following groups have endorsed the SPIRIT 2013 Statement: