Developing the RIGHT-COI&F extension for the reporting conflicts of interest and funding in practice guidelines: study protocol

Abstract

Background: Conflicts of interest (COI) and funding may influence the development of practice guidelines, but there are no internationally endorsed guidelines specifically focusing on the reporting on issues related to COI and funding in practice guidelines. Our aim is to develop an extension of the essential Reporting Items of Practice Guidelines in Healthcare (RIGHT) for COIs and Funding in practice guidelines (i.e., RIGHT-COI&F).Methods: We will follow the Enhancing the QUAlity and Transparency Of health Research (EQUATOR) network's toolkit for developing a reporting guideline in six stages: (I) identifying the need for the extension;(II) registering the project and setting up working groups; (III) collecting the initial items; (IV) reaching consensus on the items to be included; (V) revision and formulation of the final checklist; and (VI) dissemination and implementation. We intend to form a multidisciplinary international team of experts to collect and evaluate the items and plan to complete the full reporting guideline in about 2 years.Discussion: The RIGHT-COI&F statement will help guideline developers improve their reporting of issues related to COIs and funding, and subsequently improve the reporting quality of their guidelines.Journals editors, guideline users and evaluators will benefit from a more complete and transparent reporting of COI.Trial Registration: We have registered the protocol on the EQUATOR network (https://www.equatornetwork.org/library/reporting-guidelines-under-development/reporting-guidelines-under-development-forother-study-designs/#RIGHT-COI).

Knowledge, attitudes, and practices related to clinical practice guidelines and expert consensus statements and relevant reporting specifications among medical journal editors in China：a cross-sectional survey

“…The RIGHT checklist assists developers of reporting guidelines, supports journal editors and peer reviewers when evaluating submitted guidelines, and helps health-care practitioners to understand and implement guidelines [26,27]. The RIGHT Working group has developed also several extensions for different types and aspects of reporting guidelines [31][32][33][34]. Therefore, editors and publishers should consider bringing the RIGHT checklist into the instructions for authors as a requirement, or integrating the RIGHT checklist into the journal's submission system.…”

Reporting Conflicts of Interest and Funding in Health Care Guidelines: The RIGHT-COI&F Checklist

“…We registered RIGHT-COI&F in the EQUATOR ( https://www.equator—network.org/ ) collaboration network on July 15, 2021[ 27 ], and published a detailed protocol[ 28 ]. We illustrate the four steps of the development process in Figure 1 and describe them in detail below.…”

“…In the survey, the participants indicated their level of agreement with the inclusion of each item, using a 7-point Likert scale (1=strongly disagree, 7=strongly agree)[ 33 ]. Consensus was defined according to the study protocol [ 28 ]: items with a median score of at least 6 without any substantial comments were kept as such; items with a median score of 3 or below were excluded without further evaluation; otherwise, the item was revised according to the feedback. After reviewing the results of the survey, the coordination team replied to the comments given by the experts and proposed a revision of the checklist.…”

Recommendations for Improving the Quality of Chinese Cardiovascular Guidelines and Evidence

“…The forthcoming RIGHT statement for conflicts of interest and funding could be used as a standard for guidelines to manage conflicts of interest and funding. 6 …”