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Table 1 Comparison of advice on style of reporting and content of case report presented as no (%) or median with interquartile ranges.

From: Instructions to authors for case reporting are limited: A review of a core journal list

 

All journals n = 163

Medicine n = 81

Surgery n = 38

Generic n = 44

p value

Advice on style of reporting

*Limit on words

1000 (750,1000)

1000 (750,1500)

750 (500, 1000)

1000 (925,1000)

0.70

*Limits on pages

4 (2,5)

3 (2,6)

4 (2.75, 6)

1 (1,1)

0.0001

*Limit on figures

1 (1,1)

1 (1,2)

2 (1,2)

1 (1,1)

0.30

*Limit on tables

1 (1,1)

1 (1,1)

1 (1,2)

1 (1,1)

0.45

*Limit on references

8 (5,10)

8 (6,10)

5 (4,8)

9 (5,10)

0.74

*Limit on Authors

6 (4,6)

5 (3,6)

5.5 (3.5, 6)

6 (5.25,9)

0.31

Abstract/Synopsis

149 (91%)

72 (89%)

37 (97%)

40 (91%)

0.30

Indexing/Key word

145 (89%)

70 (86%)

36 (94%)

39 (89%)

0.40

Consent required

29 (18%)

14 (17%)

5 (13%)

10 (23%)

0.52

Advice on content of case report

Instructive

91(55%)

50 (62%)

16 (42%)

25 (57%)

0.90

Originality

42 (26%)

19 (23%)

8 (22%)

15 (34%)

0.07

Innovative

42 (26%)

15 (19%)

10 (26%)

17 (39%)

0.25

Unusual/Rare

99 (61%)

53 (65%)

18 (47%)

28 (64%)

0.63

Hypothesis generation

9 (6%)

4 (6%)

2 (5%)

3 (7%)

0.55

  1. Data are reported as median with interquartile ranges, the others as actual numbers with percentages in bracket.