Evaluation of the reporting quality of clinical practice guidelines on melanoma using the RIGHT checklist

Yongjie Yang; Yanfang Ma; Jingli Lu; Qiwen Zhang; Kelei Guan; Kefeng Liu; Jian Kang; Shuzhang Du; Shu Tang; Xuehui Liu; Ailing Zhang; Dirk Schadendorf; Sanjiv S Agarwala; Xiaojian Zhang

doi:10.21037/atm-21-2603

Evaluation of the reporting quality of clinical practice guidelines on melanoma using the RIGHT checklist

Ann Transl Med. 2021 Jul;9(14):1172. doi: 10.21037/atm-21-2603.

Authors

Yongjie Yang^{1

2}, Yanfang Ma³, Jingli Lu^{1

2}, Qiwen Zhang^{1

2}, Kelei Guan^{1

2}, Kefeng Liu^{1

2}, Jian Kang^{1

2}, Shuzhang Du^{1

2}, Shu Tang^{1

2}, Xuehui Liu^{1

2}, Ailing Zhang^{1

2}, Dirk Schadendorf⁴, Sanjiv S Agarwala⁵, Xiaojian Zhang^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Pharmacy, the First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, China.
² Henan Key Laboratory of Precision Clinical Pharmacy, Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, China.
³ School of Chinese Medicine of Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong, China.
⁴ Department of Dermatology, University Hospital Duisburg-Essen, Essen, Germany.
⁵ Temple University School of Medicine, Philadelphia, PA, USA.

Abstract

Background: The International Reporting Items for Practice Guidelines in Healthcare (RIGHT) instrument was launched in 2016 to improve the reporting of clinical practice guidelines (CPGs). We aimed to systematically evaluate the reporting quality of CPGs on melanoma using RIGHT.

Methods: We systematically searched electronic databases, guideline databases and medical society websites until November 2020 to identify guidelines for melanoma published since 2018. The reporting quality of included guidelines was assessed by calculating the percentages of the 35 items of the RIGHT checklist that were appropriately reported. We stratified the results by selected characteristics to describe the correlation of these factors with reporting quality.

Results: A total of 20 guidelines were identified and analyzed. The mean reporting rate was greater than 50% in five of the seven domains of the RIGHT checklist; the remaining two domains (Other information, Review and quality assurance) both had a mean reporting rate of 35.0%. The mean overall reporting rate was 63.7%. No CPG considered equity, feasibility or acceptability of the recommendations (item 14c), and only one CPG described the role of funders (item 18b). Guidelines that reported funding or were published in higher-impact journals tended to have a higher reporting quality, whereas the reporting rate in the one included Chinese-language CPG was low.

Conclusions: Reporting quality of melanoma CPGs tends to be relatively good. The CPGs developed in China were however an exception. The use of the 2016 RIGHT tool in guideline development should be encouraged to support rigorous and transparent reporting.

Keywords: Melanoma; Reporting Items for Practice Guidelines in Healthcare checklist (RIGHT checklist); clinical practice guidelines (CPGs); reporting quality.