Developing an extension of the RIGHT statement for clinical practice guidelines on acupuncture: RIGHT for acupuncture – A protocol

Abstract

IntroductionThe 2017 International Standard for Reporting Items for practice Guideline in HealThcare (RIGHT) published reporting guidelines to enhance transparency and clarity in the process of developing clinical practice guidelines (CPGs). As there are some barriers in the applicability of these guidelines to acupuncture due to its specificity in terms of manipulations, locations and channels compared to other health care interventions, we aim to develop a specific reporting checklist for the development of CPGs on acupuncture. MethodsThe study design will refer to the methodology recommended by the Enhancing the QUAlity and Transparency Of health Research (EQUATOR) Network and will be modified as appropriate. We will conduct a literature review and establish an international multidisciplinary team, including a Development Group, a Delphi Panellists Group and an Advisory Group. We will run three rounds of modified Delphi surveys, face-to-face consensus meetings, consultations with advisors, pilot tests of the draft list of reports and promotion of the checklist. We plan to update regularly. ResultsThe study is ongoing and there are no complete results. We will update it in time if there is any result. ConclusionsThis work will be relevant to a broad range of CPGs addressing questions of reporting standards on CPGs on Acupuncture, which will have the following advantages: 1) To provide regulations for guideline developers; 2) To obtain more precise and clear guidelines for readers and clinical practitioners; and 3) To evaluate reporting quality of CPGs on acupuncture and improve transparency of research reports for editors and reviewers.