The use and replication of high-quality evaluative research in practice are dependent upon good reporting of the interventions. However, the reporting of interventions is poor in many fields, contributed by the authors’ low awareness of what constitutes adequate reporting.1,2 The TIDieR (Template for Intervention Description and Replication) reporting guideline is a 12-item checklist that was created to improve the quality of reporting and the replicability of interventions.2 TIDieR is an extension of the Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials (CONSORT) 2010 and the Standard Protocol Items: Recommendations for Interventional Trials (SPIRIT) 2013 reporting guidelines, which were created to improve the reporting of clinical trials and clinical trial protocols respectively.3,4 The 12 items of TIDieR are briefly described in Table 1.
Description of the items included in the TIDieR.2
The problem of incomplete reporting of interventions revolves around research waste. If a study inadequately describes its intervention, and the intervention, if effective, cannot be implemented, then it contributes to a waste of the research funding. Although clinical trials must aim for high methodological quality, complete reporting is also needed to enable replication and implementation. Nowadays more attention is being directed to developing interventions that can be replicated and scaled up, and the complete reporting of such interventions is a fundamental part of this process.
Previous studies have reported that incomplete description of interventions is a problem in randomised controlled trials in many fields of healthcare.2,5–7 For example, adequate reporting was available for only 20% of evidence-based practice educational interventions,8 and 21% of group management of type 2 diabetes interventions.9 Analysis of samples of reports of oncology interventions and acupuncture interventions found inadequate reporting in all the studies assessed.10,11 In an evaluation of the reporting of interventions in physical therapy trials, the description of the active interventions was complete for more than 70% of the studies, compared with 30% of the control group interventions.12 Especially in physical therapy, recent systematic reviews have identified a low quality of reporting of interventions, and strongly encourage the use of TIDieR in conducting and reporting future studies.13–16
Even though TIDieR was initially created to guide the reporting of interventions in trials and other evaluative study designs, several extensions and adaptations of the original reporting guideline have been developed.17–20 Some examples include: TIDieR-PHP, adapted for population health and policy interventions17 - which is for interventions that are conducted at a population level and aim to change behaviours or social and economic determinants of health (e.g., legislation for smoke-free public places, reduced urban speed limits); TIDieR for placebo and sham control interventions (TIDieR-placebo)18 – complete reporting aids the understanding of the potential benefits and harms of the active interventions when compared to placebo; and TIDieR for telehealth interventions (TIDieR-telehealth)19 - to meet the growing demand of implementation of e-health interventions. TIDieR can also be used to report intervention descriptions in systematic reviews of interventions21 and its use is recommended as part of the systematic review reporting guideline – PRISMA 2020.22
The work of improving the reporting of interventions requires efforts not only from study authors but also from publishers, journal editors, reviewers, institutional regulatory boards, universities, research facilities and other educational institutions, funding agencies, and stakeholders.23 The use of the TIDieR should be mandatory in the submission process for journals and in earlier pre-publication locations, such as trial registries and protocols. The word limit of published articles should not be a barrier and journal editors and publishers should require complete reporting and encourage the use of online supplementary materials when necessary. A less detailed intervention will be a barrier to replication and synthesis in new studies and accurate use in clinical practice.
To reduce language barriers and increase the completeness of intervention reporting, TIDieR has been translated into French, German, Italian, Spanish, Turkish, and Chinese, and is now available in Brazilian Portuguese. These translations facilitate the use of TIDieR during the planning and reporting of clinical trials, making them more viable to be implemented and replicated, and contributing to more transparent health research worldwide. The original version in English of TIDieR and all the translations can be accessed on the EQUATOR Network website (www.equator-network.org/reporting-guidelines/tidier/) and the TIDieR Guide website (www.tidierguide.org). The TIDieR Guide website also contains an authoring tool that guides authors of trials and developers of interventions through completing each of the TIDieR items and produces a document that contains the intervention details.
We would like to thank Gisela C. Miyamoto, Lisandra Almeida, Lívia G. Fernandes, and Tatiane da Silva for participating in the process of translation TIDieR into Brazilian-Portuguese. Mariana N. Leite is the recipient of a PhD scholarship from Sao Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP-Brazil), and Tiê P. Yamato is the recipient of a research grant from Sao Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP-Brazil). This editorial did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.
