3.1 Characteristics of included COSs
The first COS was published in 2000; the majority published year was
2018-2019 ( Fig.1). Forty-four COSs focus on 26 topics and mainly
focused on pelvic organ prolapse (9%) and maternity care (9%) (
Fig.2). The included studies were conducted by the corresponding author
from nine countries, mostly in the UK (38.6%), USA (13.6%), Canada
(11.4%), and Australia (9%) ( Fig.3). The corresponding author of 40
COSs was from the developed country (91%) and four from the developing
country (9%). The median journal impact factor (IQR) of OG COSs
published was 5.079 (2.103, 5.357). And 13 COSs involved statistic or
epidemiologic authors. There are 6 COSs developed with 1 to 3 authors,
15 COSs developed with 4 to 6 authors, 13 COSs developed with 7 to 10
authors, 10 COSs developed with more than ten authors, and twenty-five
COSs were registered with protocol; twenty-four COSs declared funding
sources; nine COSs proclaimed that they did not receive funds, and
eleven COSs did not state whether they receive funds. Thirty-four COSs
conducted a systematic review; twenty-nine COSs reported search
strategy; only three COSs used the interview method. In addition, twenty
COSs used the Delphi method, eleven of COSs conducted two rounds of
Delphi, and nine of COSs conducted three rounds of Delphi, eighteen COSs
used consensus meeting method, only sixteen COSs (36.4%) conducted both
scoping process and consensus process. The main characteristics of the
included COSs were presented in Table 1.