A reporting tool for practice guidelines in healthcare: the RIGHT Statement

Yaolong Chen, Kehu Yang, Ana Marušić, Amir Qaseem, Joerg J. Meerpohl, Signe Flottorp, Elie A. Akl, Holger J. Schünemann, Edwin S. Y. Chan, Yngve Falck-Ytter, Faruque Ahmed, Sarah Barber, Chiehfeng Chen, Mingming Zhang, Bin Xu, Jinhui Tian, Fujian Song, Hongcai Shang, Kun Tang, Qi WangSusan L. Norris

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Abstract

The quality of reporting of practice guidelines is often poor and there is no widely accepted guidance or standards for the reporting of practice guidelines in healthcare. An international working group (the RIGHT working group) was therefore established to address this gap. The group followed an existing framework for developing health research reporting guidelines and the EQUATOR (Enhancing the QUAlity and Transparency Of health Research) Network approach.
We developed a checklist and an explanation and elaboration document. The RIGHT checklist includes 22 items that we consider essential for good reporting of practice guidelines. These items encompass basic information (items 1-4), background (items 5-9), evidence (items 10-12), recommendations (items 13-15), review and quality assurance (items 16-17), funding and declaration and management of interests (items 18-19), and other information (items 20-22). The RIGHT checklist can assist developers when reporting their guidelines, support journal editors and peer reviewers when considering guideline reports, and help healthcare practitioners understand and implement a guideline.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)128-132
Number of pages5
JournalAnnals of Internal Medicine
Volume166
Issue number2
Early online date22 Nov 2016
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 17 Jan 2017

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