Reporting quality of chronic kidney disease practice guidelines according to the RIGHT statement: a systematic analysis

Abstract

Aim: The aim of this study was to evaluate the reporting quality of chronic kidney disease (CKD) guidelines. Methods: PubMed, EMBASE, and guideline-related websites were searched from 2008 to 2019. The CKD guidelines were included. Two reviewers used the RIGHT (Reporting Items for Practice Guidelines in Healthcare) checklist to assess the quality of guidelines and calculate the reporting proportion of each guideline. Results: We included 13 guidelines, of which 30.8% (4/13) were developed in Europe and about two-thirds (8/13) were published on their own website. The average quality of the 13 guidelines was 68.57%. The reporting proportion of the seven domains (i.e. basic information; background; evidence; recommendations; review and quality assurance; funding and declaration and management of interests; other information) were 65.39%, 81.73%, 63.08%, 69.23%, 53.85%, 63.46%, and 61.54%, respectively. Conclusion: CKD guidelines had moderate reporting quality in some domains, but guideline developers should increase the reporting items in basic information, guideline evidence, and recommendations. The RIGHT checklist would be a useful tool to improve the reporting quality of guidelines.