Protecting the power of interventions through proper reporting

Authors, reviewers, and journal editors are responsible for ensuring that standards of research reporting include detailed descriptions of interventions. The impact of nursing intervention research is much reduced when interventions are poorly described. Nursing research reports often fail to detail descriptions of interventions sufficiently to move future research forward, apply new knowledge in practice, and refine theories. To address this deficit, the authors constructed detailed guidelines for reporting interventions. Based on a review of health care literature, these guidelines include a discussion of theoretical, participant, interventionist, content, and delivery intervention elements with rationale for their inclusion. Suggestions for presenting this information in limited journal space are also presented.