3.2.3.5 Developing guidelines

Ethical guidelines for The Cochrane Collaboration as a whole have been developed by a  working group of the Steering Group. Review Groups need to consider in particular, the role of pharmaceutical/appliance companies in the support of the Group. Industry support for the preparation of specific reviews has been strongly discouraged, both by The Cochrane Collaboration and by representatives of the pharmaceutical industry.

Authors need to take care not to break confidentiality agreements that may cover certain trials in their reviews, especially unpublished ones.

All protocols and reviews produced by the Group are published through its module in The Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews that is available via the Internet and on CD-ROM. Whilst authors may also wish to publish reviews in paper journals, this must not delay publication in The Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. Cochrane resources are principally for the production of Cochrane reviews. Journals cannot be assigned copyright for the CDSR version of the review. Authors who wish to publish their Cochrane reviews in paper journals should contact their editorial team for advice and enter into early negotiations with the appropriate journal (see Section 2.2.4 above).

Most Cochrane Review Groups will need to develop guidelines for authors on assessing trial quality, on how various forms of outcome data are chosen and assessed, and on standard descriptive details that are asked for in the ‘Trials Included’ table. These guidelines could be drafted by the editors in the process of preparing their own Cochrane reviews. Other members of the Group could then be asked to comment on the draft and to suggest modifications. It can be very productive to hold a workshop to discuss prototype materials. This information is then included in the Cochrane Review Group’s module in The Cochrane Library.