TY - JOUR T1 - Existing guidance on reporting of consensus methodology: a systematic review to inform ACCORD guideline development JF - BMJ Open JO - BMJ Open DO - 10.1136/bmjopen-2022-065154 VL - 12 IS - 9 SP - e065154 AU - Esther J van Zuuren AU - Patricia Logullo AU - Amy Price AU - Zbys Fedorowicz AU - Ellen L Hughes AU - William T Gattrell Y1 - 2022/09/01 UR - http://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/12/9/e065154.abstract N2 - Objective To identify evidence on the reporting quality of consensus methodology and to select potential checklist items for the ACcurate COnsensus Reporting Document (ACCORD) project to develop a consensus reporting guideline.Design Systematic review.Data sources Embase, MEDLINE, Web of Science, PubMed, Cochrane Library, Emcare, Academic Search Premier and PsycINFO from inception until 7 January 2022.Eligibility criteria Studies, reviews and published guidance addressing the reporting quality of consensus methodology for improvement of health outcomes in biomedicine or clinical practice. Reports of studies using or describing consensus methods but not commenting on their reporting quality were excluded. No language restrictions were applied.Data extraction and synthesis Screening and data extraction of eligible studies were carried out independently by two authors. Reporting quality items addressed by the studies were synthesised narratively.Results Eighteen studies were included: five systematic reviews, four narrative reviews, three research papers, three conference abstracts, two research guidance papers and one protocol. The majority of studies indicated that the quality of reporting of consensus methodology could be improved. Commonly addressed items were: consensus panel composition; definition of consensus and the threshold for achieving consensus. Items least addressed were: public patient involvement (PPI); the role of the steering committee, chair, cochair; conflict of interest of panellists and funding. Data extracted from included studies revealed additional items that were not captured in the data extraction form such as justification of deviation from the protocol or incentives to encourage panellist response.Conclusion The results of this systematic review confirmed the need for a reporting checklist for consensus methodology and provided a range of potential checklist items to report. The next step in the ACCORD project builds on this systematic review and focuses on reaching consensus on these items to develop the reporting guideline.Protocol registration https://osf.io/2rzm9.All data relevant to the study are included in the article or uploaded as supplementary information. All key data for this study are included in this article or uploaded as online supplementary information. The ACCORD protocol has been listed on the EQUATOR website (Reporting guidelines under development for other study designs | The EQUATOR Network (equator-network.org)) and registered with the Open Science Framework (https://osf.io/2rzm9). ER -