Introduction

Allergic diseases represent a public health issue 1. Up to 30% of individuals may be affected by some type of allergic diseases whose prevalence, as a whole, is on the rise2–5. Scientific evidence from observational studies is accumulating quickly in the field of allergy epidemiology, as also indicated by the increasing number of systematic reviews in allergy epidemiology 6,7. However, the availability of a vast number of published papers does not necessarily correspond to the timely translation of such research into public health and prevention programmes. This is also true in allergy epidemiology, where delivery of care and healthcare services have not evolved sufficiently despite an increased prevalence of allergic diseases 8. Evidence-based prevention has become a topic of great interest in the field of allergy immunology and its implementation is clearly strategic9.
The quality of reporting of allergy observational studies is crucial for any kind of subsequent research and utilization, including the translation into effective and efficient public health and evidence based prevention programmes 10,11. Peer-reviewed journals in the field of allergy epidemiology require that papers from observational studies have a certain quality of reporting. Tools have been proposed to guide or evaluate the quality of reporting in observational studies. Those tools are collected by the EQUATOR network12. The Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (STROBE) is one of the most comprehensive tools in use. STROBE is also widely accepted and recommended by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors https://www.strobe-statement.org/index.php?id=strobe-endorsement. After a three-year research process involving more than 35 scientists, the STROBE checklist was first published in 2007. It consists of 22 items, four of which are specifically defined by study design (cross-sectional, cohort and case-control) while the other 18 items evaluate certain aspects of reporting quality that are shared by all observational designs 13. The STROBE checklist is also attractive because it evaluates reporting quality by paper section with specific items for title and abstract, introduction, methods, results and discussion. Thus, STROBE appears to be a suitable tool to evaluate reporting quality in observational research; however, its correct use is not free from pitfalls 14. STROBE is of qualitative nature so its quantitative use is challenging. For example, it is not intuitive to understand if and how, following STROBE assessment, the reporting from a given study can be considered as poor or satisfactory from an overall or section-specific viewpoint.
This study was developed and conducted by a Task Force “Adherence to reporting guidelines in articles published in EAACI Journals” of the European Academy of Allergy and Clinical Immunology (EAACI). The aim of this study was to evaluate the degree to which the 22 STROBE items were adhered to in research published in the field of allergy and whether this varied over time and by study design.