The reporting of values, confidence intervals and statistical significance in Preventive Veterinary Medicine (1997-2017).

Background: Despite much discussion in the epidemiologic literature surrounding the use of null hypothesis significance testing (NHST) for inferences, the reporting practices of veterinary researchers have not been examined. We conducted a survey of articles published in Preventive Veterinary Medicine, a leading veterinary epidemiology journal, aimed at (a) estimating the frequency of reporting values, confidence intervals and statistical significance between 1997 and 2017, (b) determining whether this varies by article section and (c) determining whether this varies over time.

Methods: We used systematic cluster sampling to select 985 original research articles from issues published in March, June, September and December of each year of the study period.