An evaluation of the compliance of studies evaluating health information systems in ‎Iran ‎with the Statement on Reporting of Evaluation Studies in Health Informatics

Introduction: Numerous studies have evaluated health information systems in Iran, but most studies have not ‎followed a standard format for reporting their findings. The objective of this study was to ‎evaluate the compliance of health information systems’ evaluations published in Persian journals ‎with the Statement on Reporting of Evaluation Studies in Health Informatics (STARE-HI). Methods: This was a review study in which papers reporting on evaluation of health information systems ‎were assessed in terms of 51 principles of the STARE-HI using a checklist. These papers were ‎retrieved from the Persian databases of Magiran, IranMedex, and SID using appropriate ‎keywords. Data were classified and reported based on 13 main sections of the STARE-HI. Results: From the 727 retrieved papers, 36 were relevant to the study objectives. All paper had an ‎introduction section, but none of the paper had the authors’ contribution and conflict of interests ‎sections. The mean compliance of articles with the STARE-HI was 71.4%, with the lowest being ‎‎52.94% and the highest being 82.35%. Conclusion: The writing style and structure of studies evaluating health information systems require ‎improvements‏.‏‎ The quality of study reports can be improved through reporting essential ‎information in articles and using corresponding guidelines in the design of authors’ instruction ‎sections of journals. Improving the reporting format of papers can result in better and higher rate ‎of application of study results and increased citation of articles.