Investigators are encouraged to post the results of their studies, once finalized, on the AAHSD. It is easy to do, and fulfills many purposes. First and foremost, it fulfills the ethical obligations to the owners who enrolled their animals in the study expecting that the results of that study would contribute to advancement of veterinary medical knowledge. Second, it provides a public record of study results accompanied by a description of the study methodology and criteria in a standardized format. Third, archiving results on the AAHSD will help the research community overcome publication bias against those studies not showing significantly positive results. In the same vein, having a running archive of study results (both positive as well as negative) will facilitate more complete systematic reviews of a given disease.
To post study results, users should log in to their AAHSD user account and select 'edit study'. Users may post their study results in a number of different ways. Study results may be posted by copying and pasting text (such as an abstract) into a text box. Study results may also be posted by uploading a PDF file of a manuscript or other document. Lastly, study results may be posted by providing a link (such as a PubMed or journal access link) to a published paper.
After posting the results, the study status will be updated from 'study completed' to 'study completed – results posted' to signify that results of the study are available for public search.