3.2 Compliance rates of COS-STAR standards
The compliance rates of 8 standards, mainly focusing on the introduction
and discussion sections, were >85%. Moreover, the
development protocol or registration details was accessible in 56.8% of
COSs; 68.2 % of COSs described the sources of information for the
initial list of outcomes, 65.9% of COSs described how outcomes were
dropped/combined, and 56.8% of COSs outlined the final COS. 22 COSs did
not describe how outcomes were scored and how scores were summarized;
and 14 COSs did not describe whether members of the team had any
conflict of interest. The compliance rates of 10 standards on the
COS-STAR assessment were less than 55%. These included: ”Identify in
the title that the paper reports the development of a COS”, ”Describe
the rationale for stakeholder groups involved in the COS”, ”the sources
of information for the initial list of outcomes”, ”Describe how the
consensus process was undertaken”, ”Provide a statement regarding the
ethics and consent issues for the study”, ”Describe any changes from the
protocol”, ”Present data on the number and relevant characteristics of
the people involved at all stages of COS development”, ”List all
outcomes considered at the start of the consensus process”, ”Describe
any new outcomes introduced and any outcomes dropped”, and ”Describe
sources of funding/role of funders”. (Fig.4)
Total COS-STAR compliance standards of OG COSs with the prior protocol
were significantly higher than without protocol (MD= 3.846, 95% CI:
0.835 - 6.858, P= 0.012) (Table 2). Table 3 shows reporting quality of
COSs. We also analyzed total compliance for each of the 25 criteria and
observed the significant differences between COSs with a priori protocol
and those without a priori protocol related to the criteria ”describe
sources of funding/role of funders” (OR= 4.94, 95% CI:1.26-19.32,
P=0.022 ), ”protocol/registry entry” (OR= 39.23, 95% CI: 2.54,606.03,
P= 0.009 ), “describe the information sources used to identify an
initial list of outcomes.” (OR= 2.28, 95% CI: 1.33 - 3.89, P= 0.002),
“describe how outcomes were dropped/combined” (OR= 2.0, 95% CI: 1.15
- 3.47, P= 0.015), and “describe sources of funding/role of funders”
(OR= 2.280 , 95% CI: 1.126 - 4.617, P= 0.022).