Methodology and reporting quality of reporting guidelines: systematic review.

Xiaoqin Wang,Qi Wang,Wei Deng,Dang Wei,Gen Chen,Nan Li,Yaolong Chen,Kehu Yang,Nan Yang,Liang Yao

doi:10.1186/s12874-015-0069-z

Abstract

BackgroundWith increasing attention put on the methodology of reporting guidelines, Moher et al. conducted a review of reporting guidelines up to December 2009. Information gaps appeared on many aspects. Therefore, in 2010, the Guidance for Developers of Health Research Reporting Guidelines was developed. With more than four years passed and a considerable investment was put into reporting guideline development, a large number of new, updated, and expanded reporting guidelines have become available since January 2010. We aimed to systematically review the reporting guidelines published since January 2010, and investigate the application of the Guidance.MethodsWe systematically searched databases including the Cochrane Methodology Register, MEDLINE, and EMBASE, and retrieved EQUATOR and the website (if available) to find reporting guidelines as well as their accompanying documents. We screened the titles and abstracts resulting from searches and extracted data. We focused on the methodology and reporting of the included guidelines, and described information with a series of tables and narrative summaries. Data were summarized descriptively using frequencies, proportions, and medians as appropriate.ResultsTwenty-eight and 32 reporting guidelines were retrieved from databases and EQUATOR network, respectively. Reporting guidelines were designed for a broad spectrum of types of research. A considerable number of reporting guidelines were published and updated in recent years. Methods of initial items were given in 45 (75 %) guidelines. Thirty-eight (63 %) guidelines reported they have reached consensus, and 35 (58 %) described their consensus methods. Only 9 (15 %) guidelines followed the Guidance.ConclusionsOnly few guidelines were developed complying with the Guidance. More attention should be paid to the quality of reporting guidelines.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12874-015-0069-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Highlights

With increasing attention put on the methodology of reporting guidelines, Moher et al conducted a review of reporting guidelines up to December 2009
This review focused on guidelines using consensus-based methods and implemented deep analyses with the consensus method, where information gaps appeared within many aspects
We focused on the methodology and reporting quality of included guidelines and extracted the following data: 1) characteristics of the study including title, language, year of publication, authors, and guideline version, 2) background information including time-consumption, research type, reporting scope, and target users, 3) whether the consensus was reported and whether consensus meeting was held and its relevant activities provided, 4) postpublication activities including implementation, evaluation, and endorsement, 5) whether the guidelines were compliant with the Guidance, and 6) other information including research gaps, limitations, funding, and COIs

Summary

Introduction

With increasing attention put on the methodology of reporting guidelines, Moher et al conducted a review of reporting guidelines up to December 2009. In 2010, the Guidance for Developers of Health Research Reporting Guidelines was developed. For improving the quality of the research, experts developed reporting guidelines. A reporting guideline is a checklist, flow diagram, or an explicit text guiding authors in reporting a specific type of research. Some reporting guidelines provide a flow diagram for users to report information of research following sequential stages. Reporting guidelines are important tools for improving the quality of medical research. Thirty-six (60 %) were designed for full text, three (5 %) were used for reporting the methods, two (3 %) were developed for methods and discussion, and two (3 %) were designed for abstract, whereas, the remaining 17 (28 %) were unclear. Forty-four (73 %) reporting guidelines were designed for specific health areas

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