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Reporting Data on Homeopathic Treatments:
                                     A Supplement to CONSORT

The RedHot initiative sets a standard for reporting details of homeopathic treatments. It is a checklist designed to be used by authors and editors when publishing reports of clinical trials. It is intended to:

• clarify what homeopathic treatment involves
• assist in making comparisons between different trials
• inform estimates of how representative and relevant any particular homeopathic treatment is.

The CONSORT Statement on clinical trials has led to improved reporting of trial design and conduct in general. However, published trials sometimes still do not include enough detail to allow clear understanding of the treatments and procedures being tested. This is particularly so for CAM therapies such as homeopathy, because CAM interventions are often much less standardized than conventional treatments. For example, homeopathic analysis strategies, individualized prescriptions, pharmacy procedures and practitioner experience are often reported incompletely or inconsistently.

To tackle this problem, 12 homeopathic trial experts came together to produce a consensus statement on the essential information needed to describe treatments. We adopted a 3-stage process. In round 1, panellists produced items that were successively voted for and refined in rounds 2 and 3. 57 final items were then compiled as 28 brief items under 8 headings, cross-referenced to CONSORT items 2, 3, 4 and 19, with explanatory notes.
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The guidelines have been published as “Reporting Data on Homeopathic Treatments (RedHot): A supplement to CONSORT.”
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Medline-listed journals that regularly publish homeopathic trial reports have adopted the RedHot guidelines and include them in their Instructions to Authors. We would urge the general adoption of the guidelines by other journals.
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We encourage users to report their experience with RedHot to the coordinator, Mike Emmans Dean (info@redhot-homeopathy.info). This will help to identify and resolve problems in areas such as clarity, feasibility and acceptability. All reports are registered, and will be fed back to the next consensus panel as part of the ongoing drafting and revision process.
 

info@redhot-homeopathy.info