Item category	Checklist item	Page no.	Description
Design	Study design	Page 2	The target population were colorectal surgeons with an interest in coloproctology
Ethics	Ethics approval	Page 2	This study was exempt from review board approval at authors’ institutions
	Informed consent	Page 2	All participants, as members of a web‐based panel, had already provided informed consent to participate in online surveys. Informed consent for the present survey was obtained from all those agreeing to complete a survey, with participants informed on the welcome page that the survey concerned the current status of proctology, that it would take approximately 8 min to complete, that all responses were confidential and anonymous and that reporting would be on an aggregate level only. Consent was indicated when respondents clicking the ‘Accept’ button from this page
	Data protection	Page 3	Proprietary survey software and local servers were used to ensure data protection. No personal information was linked to survey results in any way. The fully de‐identified dataset is kept on password‐protected computers
Development and pretesting		Page 3	Co‐authors (GG, AS, VDS, IG, UG) piloted the survey, assessed the design and checked the feasibility and validity of the questions. Estimated mean time to complete the survey was 8 min
Recruitment process	Open versus closed survey	Page 2	This was an open survey. Participants were recruited through dedicated scientific societies advertisement and social media. A closed number of participants belonging to two of the most renowned scientific societies in the field was also recruited via email invitation
	Contact mode	Page 2	The initial contact with the potential participants was made on the Internet
Recruitment process (cont'd)	Advertising the survey	Page 2	The survey was advertised on social media and among members of scientific societies in the field of coloproctology
Survey administration	Web/email	Pages 2–3	This was a web‐based survey, with respondents channelled to ‘Online surveys’ (formerly BOS – Bristol Online Survey) site, developed by the University of Bristol. Responses were collected through the online survey platform and stored on secure local servers. Responses were single or multiple choice, numeric, and open text
	Context	Pages 2–3	The online survey platform is licensed by the Queen Mary University of London for research projects
	Mandatory/volun tary	Page 2	Voluntary
	Incentives	Page 2	No compensation offered
	Time/date	Page 3	Responses were collected between 15 and 26 April 2020
	Item randomisation	Page 3	No randomisation of items was used
	Adaptive questioning	Page 3	Adaptive questioning (branched) was used. Relevant survey items were displayed based on previous responses
	Number of items	Page 2	A maximum of five items were displayed on any one survey page. The full survey comprised a total of 27 items, although because of the adaptive nature of the questionnaire, not all respondents answered all items
	Number of screens	Page 2	The full survey was distributed over nine pages
	Completeness check	Page 3	All survey items were deemed to be mandatory, and respondents prompted to complete outstanding items before leaving the survey page on which the item was contained
	Review step	Page 3	Respondents were unable to change their responses once submitted
Response rates	Unique site visitor	Page 2	Determination of unique visitors was only possible for the closed group of participants who received an email invitation based on IP addresses
	View rate	Page 2	Not applicable
	Participation rate	Page 2	Not applicable
	Completion rate	Page 3	100%
Preventing multiple entries from same individual	Cookies used	Page 3	No
	IP check	Page 3	No
	Log file analysis	Page 3	Not used
	Registration	Page 3	Not applicable
Analysis	Handling of incomplete questionnaires	Page 3	Not applicable
	Questionnaires with atypical timestamp	Page 3	No respondents were removed from the survey for completing the items too quickly. The minimum completed survey was timed at approximately 5 min
	Statistical correction	Page 3	Not applicable