Background: Conflicts of interest (COIs) of contributors to a guideline project and the funding of that project can influence the development of the guideline. Comprehensive reporting of information on COIs and funding is essential for the transparency and credibility of guidelines. Objective: To develop an extension of the Reporting Items for practice Guidelines in HealThcare (RIGHT) statement for the reporting of COIs and funding in policy documents of guideline organizations and in guidelines: the RIGHT-COI&F checklist. Design: The recommendations of the Enhancing the QUAlity and Transparency Of health Research (EQUATOR) network were followed. The process consisted of registration of the project and setting up working groups, generation of the initial list of items, achieving consensus on the items, and formulating and testing the final checklist. Setting: International collaboration. Participants: 44 experts. Measurements: Consensus on checklist items. Results: The checklist contains 27 items: 18 about the COIs of contributors and 9 about the funding of the guideline project. Of the 27 items, 16 are labeled as policy related because they address the reporting of COI and funding policies that apply across an organization's guideline projects. These items should be described ideally in the organization's policy documents, otherwise in the specific guideline. The remaining 11 items are labeled as implementation related and they address the reporting of COIs and funding of the specific guideline. Limitation: The RIGHT-COI&F checklist requires testing in real-life use. Conclusion: The RIGHT-COI&F checklist can be used to guide the reporting of COIs and funding in guideline development and to assess the completeness of reporting in published guidelines and policy documents. Primary Funding Source: The Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities of China.

Background: Patients and consumers are increasingly engaged in health policymaking, research and drug regulation. Having financial relationships with the health industry creates situations of conflicts of interest (COI) and might compromise their meaningful and unbiased participation. Objective: To synthesize available evidence on the financial relationships between the health industry and patient and consumer representatives and their organizations. Methods: We systematically searched MEDLINE and EMBASE. We selected studies and abstracted data in duplicate and independently. We reported on outcomes related to financial relationships of individuals with, and/or funding of organizations by the health industry. Results: We identified a total of 14 510 unique citations, of which 24 reports of 23 studies were eligible. Three studies (13%) addressed the financial relationship of patient and consumer representatives with the health industry. Of these, two examined the proportion of public speakers in drug regulatory processes who have financial relationships; the proportions in the two studies were 25% and 19% respectively. Twenty studies (87%) addressed funding of patient and consumer organizations. The median proportion of organizations that reported funding from the health industry was 62% (IQR: 34%-69%) in questionnaire surveys, and 75% (IQR: 58%-85%) in surveys of their websites. Among organizations for which there was evidence of industry funding, a median proportion of 29% (IQR: 27%-44%) acknowledged on their websites receiving that funding. Conclusion: Financial relationships between the health industry and patient and consumer representatives and their organizations are common and may not be disclosed. Stricter regulation on disclosure and management is needed.