Guideline organizations' guidance documents paper 3: contributions and authorship

Determining the types of contributions to guideline development, as well as acknowledging these contributions groups, are critical steps in the guideline development process. The objective of this study was to describe types of contributions to guideline development and authorship policies of guideline-producing organizations as described in their guidance documents on guideline development.

We conducted a descriptive summary of guidance documents on guideline development. Using multiple sources, we initially compiled a list of guideline-producing organizations and then searched for their publicly available guidance documents on guideline development (eg, guideline handbooks). Authors abstracted data in duplicate and independently on the organizations' characteristics, types of contributions to guideline development, and authorship policies.

We identified 133 guideline-producing organizations with publicly available guidance documents, of which the majority were professional associations (59%) from the clinical field (84%). Types of contributions to guideline development described by the organizations could be categorized as related to: management; content expertise; technical expertise; or dissemination, implementation, and quality measures. Commonly reported specific contributions included panel membership (99%), executive (83%), evidence synthesis (86%), and peer review (92%). A minority of organizations mentioned entities specifically dedicated to conflict-of-interest management (20%) and to dissemination, implementation, and quality measures (24%). For most organizations, panelists were involved in either supporting or conducting the evidence synthesis (73%). Sixty percent of organizations mentioned that panels should be multidisciplinary, and 44% mentioned that they should be balanced according to at least one characteristic (eg, geographical region) (44%). A minority of organizations had a guideline authorship policy (38%). Out of those, a majority specified types of contributions eligible for authorship (76%), a minority specified criteria for exclusion from authorship (18%), and rules for authorship order (27%).

Guidance documents of guideline-developing organizations consistently describe four types of contributions (panel membership, executive, evidence synthesis, and peer review), while others are less commonly described. They also lack important details on authorship policies.