What is a reporting guideline?

A reporting guideline is a simple, structured tool for health researchers to use while writing manuscripts. A reporting guideline provides a minimum list of information needed to ensure a manuscript can be, for example:

• Understood by a reader,
• Replicated by a researcher,
• Used by a doctor to make a clinical decision, and
• Included in a systematic review.

Reporting guidelines are more than just some thoughts about what needs to be in an academic paper. We define a reporting guideline as:

“A checklist, flow diagram, or structured text to guide authors in reporting a specific type of research, developed using explicit methodology.”

Whether presented as structured text or a checklist, a reporting guideline:

• presents a clear list of reporting items that should appear in a paper and
• explains how the list was developed.