BACKGROUND: A case report is a narrative that describes, for medical, scientific, or educational purposes, a medical problem experienced by one or more patients. Case reports written without guidance from reporting standards are insufficiently rigorous to guide clinical practice or to inform clinical study design. Our primary objective was to develop, disseminate, and implement systematic reporting guidelines for case reports. METHODS: We used a three-phase consensus process consisting of (1) pre-meeting literature review and interviews to generate items for the reporting guidelines, (2) a face-to-face consensus meeting to draft the reporting guidelines, and (3) post-meeting feedback, review, and pilot testing, followed by finalization of the case reporting guidelines. RESULTS: This consensus process involved 27 participants and resulted in a 13-item checklist-a reporting guideline for case reports. The primary items of the checklist are title, key words, abstract, introduction, patient information, clinical findings, timeline, diagnostic assessment, therapeutic interventions, follow-up and outcomes, discussion, patient perspective, and informed consent. CONCLUSIONS: We believe the implementation of the CARE (CAse REporting) guidelines by medical journals will improve the completeness and transparency of published case reports and that the systematic aggregation of information from case reports will inform clinical study design, provide early signals of effectiveness and harms, and improve healthcare delivery.
BACKGROUND: A case report is a narrative that describes, for medical, scientific, or educational purposes, a medical problem experienced by one or more patients. Case reports written without guidance from reporting standards are insufficiently rigorous to guide clinical practice or to inform clinical study design. Our primary objective was to develop, disseminate, and implement systematic reporting guidelines for case reports. METHODS: We used a three-phase consensus process consisting of (1) pre-meeting literature review and interviews to generate items for the reporting guidelines, (2) a face-to-face consensus meeting to draft the reporting guidelines, and (3) post-meeting feedback, review, and pilot testing, followed by finalization of the case reporting guidelines. RESULTS: This consensus process involved 27 participants and resulted in a 13-item checklist-a reporting guideline for case reports. The primary items of the checklist are title, key words, abstract, introduction, patient information, clinical findings, timeline, diagnostic assessment, therapeutic interventions, follow-up and outcomes, discussion, patient perspective, and informed consent. CONCLUSIONS: We believe the implementation of the CARE (CAse REporting) guidelines by medical journals will improve the completeness and transparency of published case reports and that the systematic aggregation of information from case reports will inform clinical study design, provide early signals of effectiveness and harms, and improve healthcare delivery.
Authors: William N Kelly; Felix M Arellano; Joanne Barnes; Ulf Bergman; Ralph I Edwards; Alina M Fernandez; Stephen B Freedman; David I Goldsmith; Kui A Huang; Judith K Jones; Rachel McLeay; Nicholas Moore; Rosie H Stather; Thierry Trenque; William G Troutman; Eugene van Puijenbroek; Frank Williams; Robert P Wise Journal: Drug Saf Date: 2007 Impact factor: 5.606
Authors: Janosch Dahmen; Marko Brade; Christian Gerach; Martin Glombitza; Jan Schmitz; Simon Zeitter; Eva Steinhausen Journal: Unfallchirurg Date: 2018-10 Impact factor: 1.000
Authors: Sven Jungmann; Peter Laux; Torsten T Bauer; Harald Jungnickel; Nicolas Schönfeld; Andreas Luch Journal: Dtsch Arztebl Int Date: 2016-10-07 Impact factor: 5.594
Authors: Justus Wolff; Florian Breuer; Konrad von Kottwitz; Stefan Poloczek; Tom Röschel; Janosch Dahmen Journal: Unfallchirurgie (Heidelb) Date: 2022-08-10