Background: Empirical evidence suggests that active implementation of the CONSORT and other reporting guidelines by journals can promote improvements in the reporting of trials and other studies.
Objectives: To investigate how experts generate items and reach consensus when they develop reporting guidelines.
Methods: We searched the EQUATOR library (equator-network.org) on 20 March 2014. Each guideline was reviewed by two independent authors. We only included reporting guidelines on clinical research and systematic reviews. We excluded extension versions and older versions.
Results: We identified more than 200 reporting guidelines, but finally 18 met our criteria. The results showed that 14 (78%) described methods of reporting items generation, and 10 (56%) of them adopted more than one approach. The top three methods were literature reviews (13; 72%), adapted existing reporting guidelines (9; 50%), and surveys and interviews (3; 17%). For items consensus, 13 (72%) described methods, 12 (67%) of them mainly used consensus meeting, and four (22%) of them used modified Delphi.
Conclusions: Most reporting guidelines described the methods about items generation and consensus in their reporting guidelines, but few of them detailed the processes and implementation.