Data collection & payment source
The JCR CPG for rheumatoid arthritis and associated official institutional webpages provided data on author names, gender, affiliations, and positions. Additionally, individual author COI statements and recommendations were extracted from the CPG. As previously described [18-21], all pharmaceutical companies affiliated with the Japan Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association disclose their payment data concerning speaking, writing, and consulting on their company webpages. However, these companies update this payment data annually and remove data from previous years. Therefore, payment data for the CPG authors between 2016 and 2019 were extracted from a publicly accessible payment database maintained by the Medical Governance Research Institute [22]. Payments to the CPG authors in 2020 were collected directly from each pharmaceutical company’s webpage. When necessary, the author contacted the JCR’s development committee and professional offices responsible for publishing these guidelines for further information on the development process and COI statements and policies.