An international group has published 9 principles for guidelines committee members to follow when declaring and managing conflicts of interests.
The Guidelines International Network Board of Trustees (G-I-N BoT) group acknowledges that COIs cannot be totally avoided when panel members are being chosen for certain guidelines or in certain settings.
“The important issue is the management of COIs in a fair, judicious, transparent manner,” they wrote in the Annals of Internal Medicine.Â
The group suggests applying the following 9 principles for disclosing interests and managing COIs.
Principle 1: Guideline developers should make all possible efforts to not include members with direct financial or relevant indirect COIs.
Principle 2: The definition of COI and its management applies to all members of a guideline development group, regardless of the discipline or stakeholders they represent, and this should be determined before a panel is constituted.
Principle 3: A guideline development group should use standardized forms for disclosure of interests.
Principle 4: A guideline development group should disclose interests publicly, including all direct financial and indirect COIs, and these should be easily accessible for users of the guideline.