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

BACKGROUND: The International Reporting Items for Practice Guidelines in Healthcare (RIGHT) statement is a set of recommendations for reporting in clinical practice guidelines (CPGs). We aimed to use RIGHT to evaluate the reporting quality of CPGs on prostate cancer. METHODS: We systematically searched literature databases and websites from January 1, 2018 to December 1, 2020 to identify CPGs on prostate cancer. Two investigators reviewed the identified articles and assessed the reporting quality independently by using the RIGHT checklist. We reported the proportions of guidelines that complied with each of the 35 RIGHT checklist item and the mean reporting compliance percentages for each of the seven domains of RIGHT. RESULTS: A total of 38 CPGs were included. The mean overall reporting rate over the included CPGs was 51.6%. Eighteen items were reported by more than half of the guidelines four items (1a 3, 7a and 13a) were reported by all guidelines. Items 7b (10.5%), 13b (10.5%), 14c (13.2%), and 18b (7.9%) had the lowest reporting proportions. The mean reporting rates in each RIGHT domain were 74.6% for “Basic Information”, 26.3% for “Review and quality assurance”, 59.9% for “Background”, 43.7% for “Evidence”, 43.2% for “Recommendations”, 43.4% for “Funding and declaration and management of interests”, and 43.0% for “Other information”. CONCLUSIONS: The overall adherence of CPGs on prostate cancer to RIGHT checklist is poor. Following the RIGHT checklist during the development of the guideline could improve the quality of reporting in the future.