A Pragmatic Reporting Framework for Musculoskeletal Case Reports: The CARE-MSK Checklist

This preprint describes the rationale and development of the CARE-MSK Checklist, a pragmatic, CARE-informed reporting framework designed to support allied health professionals preparing musculoskeletal case reports in community-based practice.

Although the CARE guideline provides an established foundation for clinical case reporting, additional practical guidance was considered necessary to make musculoskeletal assessment, clinical reasoning, intervention decisions, and outcomes more explicit.

CARE-MSK was developed within the Clinician-Led Evidence and Reporting (CLEAR) programme at Bond University. Development involved identifying relevant reporting and methodological guidance, mapping CARE items to musculoskeletal reporting needs, and applying a working checklist to a fictitious educational exemplar. The initial 70-item framework was refined and consolidated into 50 reporting items across 15 domains.

CARE-MSK aims to support transparent reporting of how research evidence, professional expertise, patient values and preferences, and contextual factors inform care. It is intended to complement, rather than replace, existing reporting guidance.

The manuscript documents the development process, principal adaptations from CARE, and early use within CLEAR Cohort 1. CARE-MSK has not undergone formal multidisciplinary consensus, usability testing, reliability assessment, or validation. Further evaluation is needed to establish its relevance, usability, reliability, and contribution to reporting quality.

Associated resources

• CARE-MSK Checklist, Version 1.1: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23828725

• CLEAR project: https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/H75ZJ