The four checklists

VetCaseAudit screens against four reporting checklists. Two of them are established, published guidelines. Two are our own, for case reports, where no suitable published checklist existed. This page describes what each one asks for, how large it is, and where the original can be found.

STROBE-Vet

Size: 51 items in 21 sections
Study types: Cohort studies, case-control studies, cross-sectional studies
Original: Sargeant JM, O’Connor AM, Dohoo IR, et al.: Methods and Processes of Developing the Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology — Veterinary (STROBE-Vet) Statement. Zoonoses Public Health 2016;63(8):651–661 · doi:10.1111/zph.12314 · Equator Network record

The veterinary extension of the STROBE statement. It asks whether an observational study reports what a reader needs in order to place it: whether the study design is named in the title or abstract, why the study was carried out, how and where animals or holdings were selected, how the variables studied were defined and measured, how bias and sample size were handled, and which statistical methods were used.

In the results it follows the same order: who was actually included, the descriptive data, the outcomes, the main results, further analyses. In the discussion it asks after the key findings, the limitations of the study, interpretation and generalisability, and funding and the role of the funders.

The item texts in the application are condensed adaptations of the STROBE-Vet items, used under the CC BY 4.0 license of the Zoonoses and Public Health edition cited above. The base wording of many items comes from the 2007 STROBE statement (von Elm E, et al., PLoS Medicine, doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.0040296, CC BY). Attribution is shown in the application with every checklist version. We are not affiliated with the authors of the guideline.

Vet-CASE Core

Size: 51 items in 13 sections
Study types: Case reports and case series
Original: Developed for VetCaseAudit, unpublished. There is no publication we could link to here, and we do not invent one.

Vet-CASE Core is an attempt to cover the full arc of a veterinary case report rather than only its clinical core. It works through the report in order: title, keywords and abstract, why the case is worth reporting, patient and setting, the timeline, history and problem list, clinical findings, diagnostics, the reasoning from findings to diagnosis, interventions, outcome and follow-up, discussion and generalisability, then transparency and ethics.

A thirteenth section, explicitly marked as recommended, collects items that do not make a case report incomplete but do make it markedly easier to read.

NEURO-5D

Size: 41 items in 9 sections
Study types: Neurology case reports and case series
Original: Item wording: developed for VetCaseAudit, unpublished. The underlying “5 Fingers” framework comes from veterinary neurology teaching and is not ours.

NEURO-5D mirrors the structure by which neurological cases are worked up clinically. At the centre (the palm) sits the signalment, because many neurological diseases are strongly tied to species, breed and age. On it rest the five fingers: the onset (when and how fast), the course (progressive, static, relapsing), the symmetry (laterality and distribution), the pain (presence and character) and the localisation (where in the nervous system the lesion sits).

Three further sections carry the workup: the neurological examination as evidence, the differential diagnoses along the VITAMIN-D scheme, and finally diagnostics, treatment and course.

The “5 Fingers” framework itself is published: Cardy TJA, De Decker S, Kenny PJ, Volk HA: Clinical reasoning in canine spinal disease. Vet Rec 2015;177(7):171 · doi:10.1136/vr.102988; as a textbook: Maddison JE, Volk HA, Church DB: Clinical Reasoning in Small Animal Practice. Wiley-Blackwell 2015; shown in teaching by Reeh SB, et al.: Front Vet Sci 2022;9:911026 · doi:10.3389/fvets.2022.911026. NEURO-5D’s item wording remains our own.

ARRIVE 2.0

Size: 38 items in 8 sections
Study types: Experimental in vivo animal research
Original: Percie du Sert N, Hurst V, Ahluwalia A, et al.: The ARRIVE guidelines 2.0: Updated guidelines for reporting animal research. PLoS Biol 2020;18(7):e3000410 · doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.3000410· Equator Network record· arriveguidelines.org

ARRIVE 2.0 is built in two tiers, and that two-tier structure is its real contribution. The “Essential 10” are what must be reported without exception, so that an animal experiment can be assessed and repeated at all: study design and experimental unit, sample size and its justification, inclusion and exclusion criteria, randomisation and blinding, the outcome measures, the statistical methods, details of the animals, the experimental procedures, and how results are presented.

The “Recommended Set” adds what supplies the context: abstract and background, ethics and animal welfare including the approval situation, interpretation and translation to other species, and transparency statements on protocol registration, data and code availability, funding, and conflicts of interest.

ARRIVE 2.0 is published in PLoS Biology under the Creative Commons CC0 public domain dedication. The source citation is given here and in the application on every checklist version.

Why these four, and what is missing

The Equator Network is the general register of reporting guidelines in the health sciences. STROBE-Vet and ARRIVE 2.0 are listed there and are most reliably found there. That register is not complete: not every guideline is recorded in it, and for the veterinary case report there is so far no established reporting guideline that would fill this role. That is why Vet-CASE Core and NEURO-5D exist.

Four checklists are a start, not a catalogue. In VetCaseAudit, checklists are versioned data rather than hard-wired logic. Adding another means writing a file and publishing a version, not rebuilding the application. Users authoring their own checklists is not planned for version 1.

The full wording of the items is visible in the application, for every analysis, in exactly the version it ran against.