The guest blog below was written by medical professionals involved with INANE, whose membership recently unanimously agreed to support the AllTrials campaign.
The International Academy of Nursing Editors (INANE) is a loosely organized group of editors, publishers and reviewers that represent nursing journals from around the world. Yes, we know what our acronym means. And, as one would expect from a group of editors, the selection of our name was quite intentional. Our primary mission is to promote best practices in publishing and high standards in the nursing literature.
The 35th Annual Meeting of INANE was held in London in August 2016. We were pleased to have Ben Goldacre give the keynote address at the opening session on Tuesday morning, in which he shared information about the AllTrials campaign. Obviously we embrace the mission of AllTrials. At our business meeting the INANE membership unanimously agreed to support the AllTrials campaign.
It is likely that most nurses as well as most physicians are unaware of depth and breadth of the gaps in the scientific literature with regards to clinical trial results. Only when we have all of the information can we make sound, informed decisions about patient care. Many nursing journals do not require trial registration and we plan to advance this initiative via editorials, blog postings, outreach, and sharing with the editorial boards and readers of our journals.
INANE has been around since 1982. We refer to ourselves as a “non-organization” because we are not incorporated or chartered, have no elected or appointed leaders, no staff, no membership dues, no bylaws, and no rules. What we do have is a website, blog, listserv, Facebook page, Twitter feed, and annual educational conference. All activities are carried out by volunteers. Our non-members number more than 350 and represent over 240 nursing journals that form a rich network of support for our activities.
As a group, we have been successful with initiatives we describe as “shared editorials.” In this model, a few members take the lead to write a prototype editorial on a topic that is of interest to all of us. In 2012 we did this with the Future of Nursing Initiative which resulted in 58 published editorials. Two years later, our initiative focused on Predatory Journals with a white paper and 43 editorials, articles, online commentary, and blog posts. Within our ranks we are currently discussing how to move forward and share information from the AllTrials campaign in a similar fashion. We have no doubt that this will be positively welcomed by our readers and the larger research community in nursing.
As INANE members, we are excited to be part of the AllTrials collective and look forward to sharing and working with the larger AllTrials community.