Consensus project to develop a reporting checklist extension for collaboratively developed guidelines: protocol

Current reporting standards for guidelines include the Appraisal of Guidelines for Research and Evaluation Tool and the Reporting Items for Practice Guidelines in HealThcare Checklist. These recommend the minimum items that should be reported by clinical practice guideline developers. However, the reporting of guidelines that are developed between two or more organisations sharing responsibilities varies in quality and completeness regarding the documentation of the collaboration process. We aim to develop an extension document for the reporting of guidelines in which two or more groups share responsibilities and resources for development and dissemination.

A scoping review of literature relevant to collaboratively developed guidelines over the past 10 years will be conducted, adherent to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses Scoping Review Statement, to inform a long list of possible elements to be included in this extension. The qualitative data from focus group sessions among steering committee members will inform the initial list before removal of duplications and iterative amendments. A representative international, multidisciplinary group of key partners will then participate in a Delphi survey to identify a critical short list of reporting elements. All panel and steering committee members will be later invited to a consensus conference to review the provisionally included elements for final inclusion in a list of extension items. Steering committee members will then conduct a pilot of the final extension.

The Northwestern University Institutional Review Board determined that this study does not constitute human subjects research (STU00224953). The final extension instrument and explanation and elaboration document will be disseminated through peer-reviewed publication, the Guidelines International Network website as a free public resource, social media and outreach to journals and guideline-developing organisations.