A Reporting Tool for Adapted Guidelines in Health Care: The RIGHT-Ad@pt Checklist

Abstract

Background: Adaptation of existing guidelines can be an efficient way to develop contextualized recommendations. Transparent reporting of the adaptation approach can support the transparency and usability of the adapted guidelines. Objective: To develop an extension of the RIGHT (Reporting Items for practice Guidelines in HealThcare) statement for the reporting of adapted guidelines (including recommendations that have been adopted, adapted, or developed de novo), the RIGHT-Ad@pt checklist. Design: A multistep process was followed to develop the checklist: establishing a working group, generating an initial checklist, optimizing the checklist (through an initial assessment of adapted guidelines, semistructured interviews, a Delphi consensus survey, an external review, and a final assessment of adapted guidelines), and approval of the final checklist by the working group. Setting: International collaboration. Participants: A total of 119 professionals participated in the development process. Measurements: Participants' consensus on items in the checklist. Results: The RIGHT-Ad@pt checklist contains 34 items grouped in 7 sections: basic information (7 items); scope (6 items); rigor of development (10 items); recommendations (4 items); external review and quality assurance (2 items); funding, declaration, and management of interest (2 items); and other information (3 items). A user guide with explanations and real-world examples for each item was developed to provide a better user experience. Limitation: The RIGHT-Ad@pt checklist requires further validation in real-life use. Conclusion: The RIGHT-Ad@pt checklist has been developed to improve the reporting of adapted guidelines, focusing on the standardization, rigor, and transparency of the process and the clarity and explicitness of adapted recommendations.