COREQ (COnsolidated criteria for REporting Qualitative research) Checklist

This checklist provides guidance on reporting qualitative research. It includes items related to research team and reflexivity, study design, participant selection, data collection, analysis and findings. Each item has guide questions and authors must report the page number where they consider each item in their manuscript.

COREQ (COnsolidated criteria for REporting Qualitative research) Checklist
A checklist of items that should be included in reports of qualitative research. You must report the page number in your manuscript
where you consider each of the items listed in this checklist. If you have not included this information, either revise your manuscript
accordingly before submitting or note N/A.
Topic Item No. Guide Questions/Description Reported on
Page No.
Domain 1: Research team
and reflexivity
Personal characteristics
Interviewer/facilitator 1 Which author/s conducted the interview or focus group?
Credentials 2 What were the researcher’s credentials? E.g. PhD, MD
Occupation 3 What was their occupation at the time of the study?
Gender 4 Was the researcher male or female?
Experience and training 5 What experience or training did the researcher have?
Relationship with
participants
Relationship established 6 Was a relationship established prior to study commencement?
Participant knowledge of
the interviewer
7 What did the participants know about the researcher? e.g. personal
goals, reasons for doing the research
Interviewer characteristics 8 What characteristics were reported about the inter viewer/facilitator?
e.g. Bias, assumptions, reasons and interests in the research topic
Domain 2: Study design
Theoretical framework
Methodological orientation
and Theory
9 What methodological orientation was stated to underpin the study? e.g.
grounded theory, discourse analysis, ethnography, phenomenology,
content analysis
Participant selection
Sampling 10 How were participants selected? e.g. purposive, convenience,
consecutive, snowball
Method of approach 11 How were participants approached? e.g. face-to-face, telephone, mail,
email
Sample size 12 How many participants were in the study?
Non-participation 13 How many people refused to participate or dropped out? Reasons?
Setting
Setting of data collection 14 Where was the data collected? e.g. home, clinic, workplace
Presence of non-
participants
15 Was anyone else present besides the participants and researchers?
Description of sample 16 What are the important characteristics of the sample? e.g. demographic
data, date
Data collection
Interview guide 17 Were questions, prompts, guides provided by the authors? Was it pilot
tested?
Repeat interviews 18 Were repeat inter views carried out? If yes, how many?
Audio/visual recording 19 Did the research use audio or visual recording to collect the data?
Field notes 20 Were field notes made during and/or after the inter view or focus group?
Duration 21 What was the duration of the inter views or focus group?
Data saturation 22 Was data saturation discussed?
Transcripts returned 23 Were transcripts returned to participants for comment and/or

Topic Item No. Guide Questions/Description Reported on
Page No.
correction?
Domain 3: analysis and
findings
Data analysis
Number of data coders 24 How many data coders coded the data?
Description of the coding
tree
25 Did authors provide a description of the coding tree?
Derivation of themes 26 Were themes identified in advance or derived from the data?
Software 27 What software, if applicable, was used to manage the data?
Participant checking 28 Did participants provide feedback on the findings?
Reporting
Quotations presented 29 Were participant quotations presented to illustrate the themes/findings?
Was each quotation identified? e.g. participant number
Data and findings consistent 30 Was there consistency between the data presented and the findings?
Clarity of major themes 31 Were major themes clearly presented in the findings?
Clarity of minor themes 32 Is there a description of diverse cases or discussion of minor themes?
Developed from: Tong A, Sainsbury P, Craig J. Consolidated criteria for reporting qualitative research (COREQ): a 32-item checklist
for interviews and focus groups. International Journal for Quality in Health Care. 2007. Volume 19, Number 6: pp. 349 – 357
Once you have completed this checklist, please save a copy and upload it as part of your submission. DO NOT include this
checklist as part of the main manuscript document. It must be uploaded as a separate file.