If you’re a qualitative researcher, you may have heard of (or been asked to complete) a COREQ checklist. But what the heck is this ‘COREQ,’ and what does it mean for you as a researcher?
COREQ is short for COnsolidated criteria for REporting Qualitative research.
Put simply, it is a checklist to prompt qualitative researchers to be transparent and disclose certain things that could influence or bias the research: like their own characteristics, sampling methods, how data was analysed, and so on. This allows reviewers to quickly glimpse ‘behind the scenes’ of the research and identify any factors that they feel may contextualise the results.
The COREQ was developed in 2007 by a team of researchers who constructed it as a sort of ‘meta checklist’ from those already in use at the time. They gathered 22 published checklists used (often by journals) to assess qualitative studies. They pooled 76 different items from these checklists relating to the researchers, the study design, and data analysis and reporting. They then condensed these (removing duplicates and adding a couple of missing elements) into a 32-point checklist (Tong, Sainsbury & Craig, 2007) that is widely used today.
At AUT, COREQ checklists are not a standard requirement when submitting a piece of qualitative research. However you may be asked to complete a COREQ checklist when submitting to journals or in other contexts that require your research to be reviewed. Here’s what the checklist looks like in action (this one is for authors submitting to journals published by Elsevier).
The COREQ is not the only qualitative research checklist around. Given that it is designed for research involving interviews and focus groups, it is not a good fit for all types of qualitative research. Here’s our quick guide to some of the commonly-used alternatives:
| Name | Stands for | Applies to | # Checklist items |
| COREQ | COnsolidated criteria for REporting Qualitative research | Interviews / focus groups | 32 |
| SRQR | Standards for Reporting Qualitative Research | Any qualitative methods | 21 |
| PRISMA | Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses | Systematic reviews / meta-analyses | 27 |
| ENTREQ | ENhancing Transparency in REporting the synthesis of Qualitative research | Synthesising qualitative findings | 21 |
There are even more alternatives available for specific uses; the EQUATOR Network (Enhancing the QUAlity and Transparency Of health Research) has a great search tool where you can find the one best-suited to your research.
Although these checklists are widely used, there are some who feel they can become tick-box exercises and even circumvent more nuanced discussions of research rigour. A survey of qualitative researchers found that over half felt “there is the risk of RGs [reporting guidelines] becoming minimum formal requirements leading to correct but insufficient reporting styles” (Hannes, Keyvaert, Slegers, Vandenbrande, & Van Nuland, 2015, p. 8).
However for many, the transparency encouraged by these checklists outweighs the downsides. Certainly with almost 20 years of use and many major publishers behind it, the COREQ appears to be here to stay.
References & further reading
O’Brien, B. C., Harris, I. B., Beckman, T. J., Reed, D. A., & Cook, D. A. (2014). Standards for reporting qualitative research: A synthesis of recommendations. Academic medicine: Journal of the Association of American Medical Colleges, 89(9), 1245–1251. https://doi.org/10.1097/ACM.0000000000000388
Page, M. J., McKenzie, J. E., Bossuyt, P. M., Boutron, I., Hoffmann, T. C., Mulrow, C. D., Shamseer, L., Tetzlaff, J. M., Akl, E. A., Brennan, S. E., Chou, R., Glanville, J., Grimshaw, J. M., Hróbjartsson, A., Lalu, M. M., Li, T., Loder, E. W., Mayo-Wilson, E., McDonald, S., McGuinness, L. A., … Moher, D. (2021). The PRISMA 2020 statement: An updated guideline for reporting systematic reviews. PLoS medicine, 18(3). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1003583
Tong, A., Flemming, K., McInnes, E., Oliver, S., & Craig, J. (2012). Enhancing transparency in reporting the synthesis of qualitative research: ENTREQ. BMC Medical Research Methodology, 12, 181. https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2288-12-181
Tong, A., Sainsbury, P., & Craig, J. (2007). Consolidated criteria for reporting qualitative research (COREQ): A 32-item checklist for interviews and focus groups. International Journal for Quality in Health Care, 19(6), 349-357. https://doi.org/10.1093/intqhc/mzm042
