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Research Methods & Reporting

Better reporting of interventions: template for intervention description and replication (TIDieR) checklist and guide

BMJ 2014; 348 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.g1687 (Published 07 March 2014) Cite this as: BMJ 2014;348:g1687
  1. Tammy C Hoffmann, associate professor of clinical epidemiology1,
  2. Paul P Glasziou, director and professor of evidence based medicine1,
  3. Isabelle Boutron, professor of epidemiology2,
  4. Ruairidh Milne, professorial fellow in public health and director3,
  5. Rafael Perera, university lecturer in medical statistics4,
  6. David Moher, senior scientist5,
  7. Douglas G Altman, professor of statistics in medicine6,
  8. Virginia Barbour, medicine editorial director, PLOS7,
  9. Helen Macdonald, assistant editor8,
  10. Marie Johnston, emeritus professor of health psychology9,
  11. Sarah E Lamb, Kadoorie professor of trauma rehabilitation and co-director of Oxford clinical trials research unit10,
  12. Mary Dixon-Woods, professor of medical sociology11,
  13. Peter McCulloch, clinical reader in surgery12,
  14. Jeremy C Wyatt, leadership chair of ehealth research13,
  15. An-Wen Chan, Phelan scientist14,
  16. Susan Michie, professor15
  1. 1Centre for Research in Evidence Based Practice, Faculty of Health Sciences and Medicine, Bond University, Queensland, Australia, 4229
  2. 2INSERM U738, Université Paris Descartes-Sorbonne Paris Cité, Paris, France
  3. 3Wessex Institute, University of Southampton, Southampton, UK
  4. 4Department of Primary Care Health Sciences, University of Oxford, UK
  5. 5Clinical Epidemiology Program, Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, Ottawa, Canada
  6. 6Centre for Statistics in Medicine, University of Oxford, UK
  7. 7PLOS, Brisbane, Australia
  8. 8BMJ, London, UK
  9. 9Institute of Applied Health Sciences, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, UK
  10. 10Nuffield Department of Orthopaedics, Rheumatology and Musculoskeletal Sciences, Botnar Research Centre, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
  11. 11Department of Health Sciences, University of Leicester, Leicester, UK
  12. 12Nuffield Department of Surgical Science, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
  13. 13Leeds Institute of Health Sciences, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK
  14. 14Women’s College Research Institute, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada
  15. 15Centre for Outcomes Research and Effectiveness, Department of Clinical, Educational and Health Psychology, University College London, London, UK
  1. Correspondence to: T C Hoffmann thoffmann{at}bond.edu.au
  • Accepted 4 February 2014

Abstract

Without a complete published description of interventions, clinicians and patients cannot reliably implement interventions that are shown to be useful, and other researchers cannot replicate or build on research findings. The quality of description of interventions in publications, however, is remarkably poor. To improve the completeness of reporting, and ultimately the replicability, of interventions, an international group of experts and stakeholders developed the Template for Intervention Description and Replication (TIDieR) checklist and guide. The process involved a literature review for relevant checklists and research, a Delphi survey of an international panel of experts to guide item selection, and a face to face panel meeting. The resultant 12 item TIDieR checklist (brief name, why, what (materials), what (procedure), who provided, how, where, when and how much, tailoring, modifications, how well (planned), how well (actual)) is an extension of the CONSORT 2010 statement (item 5) and the SPIRIT 2013 statement (item 11). While the emphasis of the checklist is on trials, the guidance is intended to apply across all evaluative study designs. This paper presents the TIDieR checklist and guide, with an explanation and elaboration for each item, and examples of good reporting. The TIDieR checklist and guide should improve the reporting of interventions and make it easier for authors to structure accounts of their interventions, reviewers and editors to assess the descriptions, and readers to use the information.

Footnotes

  • We are grateful to everyone who responded to the Delphi survey and for their thoughtful comments. We also thank Nicola Pidduck (Department of Primary Care Health Sciences, Oxford University) for her assistance in organising the consensus meeting in Oxford.

  • Contributors: PPG and TCH initiated the TIDieR group and led the organising of the Delphi survey and consensus meeting, in conjunction with the other members of the steering group (IB, RM, and RP). TCH led the writing of the paper. All authors contributed to the drafting and revision of the paper and approved the final version. TCH and PPG are guarantors.

  • Funding: There was no explicit funding for the development of this checklist and guide. The consensus meeting in March 2013 was partially funded by a NIHR Senior Investigator Award held by PPG. TCH is supported by a National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia (NHMRC)/Primary Health Care Research Evaluation and Development Career Development Fellowship (1033038) with funding provided by the Australian Department of Health and Ageing. PPG is supported by a NHMRC Australia Fellowship (527500). DGA is supported by a programme grant from Cancer Research UK (C5529). MDW is supported by a Wellcome Trust Senior Investigator award (WT097899MA).

  • Competing interests: All authors have completed the Unified Competing Interest form at www.icmje.org/coi_disclosure.pdf (available on request from the corresponding author) and declare: RM is employed by NETSCC, part of the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) in England. NETSCC manages on behalf of NIHR the NIHR Journals Library, “a suite of five open access journals providing an important and permanent archive of research funded by the National Institute for Health Research.” The NIHR Journals Library places great value on reporting the full results of funded research and so is likely to be a user of TIDieR, as it is of other reporting guidelines. VB was the Chief Editor of PLOS Medicine at the time of the consensus meeting and initial drafting of this paper. HM is an assistant editor at BMJ but was not involved in any decision making regarding this paper.

  • Provenance and peer review: Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

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