The LEADING Guideline: Reporting Standards for Expert Panel, Best-Estimate Diagnosis, and Longitudinal Expert All...

Area of Science:

• Health research methodology
• Clinical assessment
• Psychometrics

Background:

• Accurate symptom and illness assessments are vital for health research and clinical practice, yet face significant challenges.
• Current methods often rely on expert review of multiple data sources for best-estimate assessments, but reporting quality is inconsistent.
• Existing approaches like the Expert Panel, Best-Estimate Diagnosis, and Longitudinal Expert All Data (LEAD) method lack standardized reporting.

Purpose of the Study:

• To address the gap in reporting quality for best-estimate assessment studies.
• To develop comprehensive reporting guidelines for studies employing expert-based, multi-source assessment methods.
• To enhance the planning, conduct, reporting, and evaluation of best-estimate assessment research.

Main Methods:

• A four-stage development process for the reporting guidelines was employed.
• This included drafting standards with evidence, incorporating patient and expert feedback (Delphi procedure), and refining through consensus.
• The guideline's utility was tested by researchers and by assessing reporting completeness in prior studies, revealing significant reporting gaps (33% of standards missing).

Main Results:

• The LEADING (Longitudinal, Expert, All Data) guideline consists of 20 reporting standards.
• These standards are organized into four key domains: Longitudinal design, Appropriate data, Evaluation (experts, materials, procedures), and Validity.
• Testing demonstrated that 10% to 63% of these essential reporting standards were absent in previously published studies.

Conclusions:

• The developed LEADING guideline provides a standardized framework for reporting best-estimate assessment studies.
• It aims to improve the transparency, consistency, and evaluability of research utilizing expert-driven, multi-source data.
• The guideline is expected to aid researchers in conducting and reporting high-quality best-estimate assessments.