Animal welfare requirements in publishing guidelines

Area of Science:

• Biomedical research reporting standards
• Animal welfare science
• Scientific publishing ethics

Background:

• Scientific reports often lack details on animal welfare optimization measures.
• Journal guidelines may not sufficiently mandate the inclusion of animal welfare information.

Purpose of the Study:

• To analyze the extent to which journal guidelines compel authors to report on animal welfare.
• To compare the inclusion of animal welfare-related keywords in author guidelines across different countries and medical specialties.

Main Methods:

• Examined online English versions of 'Guidelines to Authors' (GTAs) from 54 national biomedical journals.
• Keywords related to animal welfare, the 3Rs, ARRIVE guidelines, and animal experimentation regulations were identified and quantified.
• Keyword counts were normalized per 10,000 words of GTA text and analyzed using ANOVA and Tukey's post hoc tests.

Main Results:

• Veterinary journals had significantly higher non-neutral keyword counts compared to medicine, oncology, rheumatology, or surgery journals.
• British journals had higher non-neutral keyword counts than Australian, Canadian, German, and Japanese journals.
• No significant differences were found between non-neutral keyword categories.

Conclusions:

• English language guidelines in British and veterinary journals more robustly address animal welfare, the 3Rs, and ARRIVE guidelines.
• Current guidelines may be insufficient to ensure comprehensive reporting of animal welfare in scientific publications.
• Further research is needed to explore national differences using native language guidelines.