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The most commonly used reporting guidelines in qualitative research are the SRQR and COREQ; you should check with the journal you're intending to publish in whether one of these is preferred. However, other reporting guidelines also exist, for example for specific types of qualitative studies, and some examples of these specific guidelines are listed below. Some journals, such as the BMJ, prefer the use of their own individually tailored guidelines. For further resources around reporting guidelines for any type of study, we absolutely recommend visiting the EQUATOR network, a high quality resource offering numerous resources which assist researchers in accurately reporting thier work.

 

Standards for Reporting Qualitative Research: A Synthesis of Recommendations

The SRQR aims to synthesise the many sets of reporting guidelines for qualitative research; this paper describes how the SRQR was developed and presents the list of 21 aspects.

 

Consolidated criteria for reporting qualitative research (COREQ): a 32-item checklist for interviews and focus groups

The COREQ combines information requested by some 22 different checklists, to create an amalgamated checklist for any type of qualitative research. This paper explains how the checklist was created, and presents the checklist for use by other researchers.

 

Revealing the wood and the trees: reporting qualitative research

Although not an actual guideline, this useful and practical paper is absolutely recommended reading - it describes how to address common issues while writing up qualitative research, and will also be useful food for thought for those reviewing qualitative papers. For example, it explains why qualitative research tends to be written with "I" and "we", and why results chapters rarely include percentages and numbers. 

 

Presenting Qualitative Research

This presentation give useful information about how to present and write up qualitative research studies, in the form of a powerpoint.

 

Guidelines for specific types of research study:

Standards for Reporting Implementation Studies (StaRI) Statement - the StaRI guidelines provide information for those reporting implentation science. 

 

A checklist to improve reporting of group-based behaviour-change interventions - with useful information for anyone rporting participatory or action research, community engagement studies, or behaviour change intervientions, this paper describes the importance of including information about how the study was conducted as well as what results were found.

 

Enhancing transparency in reporting the synthesis of qualitative research: ENTREQ - the ENTREQ guidelines are specifically for any study which brings together different qualitative research projects into one study, for example systematic reviews.