Table 1 Thirty-six tasks created for the Q-sort survey

Etiquette objectives

To read the journals’ recommendations to reviewers

To provide recommendations on publication (e.g., reject/revise/publish)

To evaluate all appendices when available

Rationale

To evaluate the novelty of the study (i.e., does the trial add enough to what is already in the published literature)

To evaluate the importance of the study (i.e., usefulness for clinical practice)

Methods

To evaluate if the control group is appropriate

To evaluate the risk of bias of the trial

To evaluate the adequacy of the selection of participants and clinical setting

To check if the intervention is described with enough details to allow replication

To evaluate the relevance of the primary outcome(s)

To evaluate the reliability and validity of the outcome measures

Trial registration

To compare information recorded on a clinical trials register such as ClinicalTrials.gov and reported in the manuscript

To compare information recorded in the trial protocol when provided by the authors and reported in the manuscript

Reporting guidelines

To check if the items requested by the CONSORT statement are adequately reported by authors

To check if items requested by the CONSORT extensions (e.g., cluster, non-pharmacologic treatments etc.) are adequately reported when appropriate

Ethic

To check if the study reported ethics review board approval

Statistics

To evaluate the adequacy of statistical analyses

To check the sample size calculation

Results

To search for any inconsistencies or errors in the manuscript

To search for any attempt to distort the presentation or interpretation of results (e.g., data “beautification”, spin, selective reporting)

To check if all outcomes are adequately reported (results for each group, and the estimated effect size and its precision such as 95 % confidence interval)

To check if all adverse events are adequately reported (participant withdrawals due to harms, absolute risk per arm and per adverse event type, grade, and seriousness)

Discussion

To evaluate if the discussion is consistent with the results

To check if the authors referenced all important studies

To check that limitations are adequately reported

To discuss the results in relation to other studies

Conclusion

To determine whether the manuscript conclusion is consistent with the results

Fraud

To search for plagiarism or imitation in the paper

To evaluate if the manuscript can be suspected of fraud

Figures tables

To check if all figures and tables are consistent with the text

To evaluate whether figures and tables can be understood without having to refer the text

References

To evaluate if authors respect the requested format for references

Presentation

To evaluate the adequacy of the language (grammar, style, misspelling)

To evaluate clarity of presentation

Abstract

To check if the authors reported all important outcomes and adverse events in the abstract

To evaluate if the abstract conclusion is consistent with the results