Abstract
Objective
To assess the quality of recommendations from 161 clinical practice guidelines (CPGs) using AGREE-REX-D (Appraisal of Guidelines REsearch and Evaluation-Recommendations Excellence Draft).
Design
Cross-sectional study
Setting
International CPG community.
Participants
Three hundred twenty-two international CPG developers, users, and researchers.
Intervention
Participants were assigned to appraise one of 161 CPGs selected for the study using the AGREE-REX-D tool
Main outcome measures
AGREE-REX-D scores of 161 CPGs (7-point scale, maximum 7).
Results
Recommendations from 161 CPGs were appraised by 322 participants using the AGREE-REX-D. CPGs were developed by 67 different organizations. The total overall average score of the CPG recommendations was 4.23 (standard deviation (SD) = 1.14). AGREE-REX-D items that scored the highest were (mean; SD): evidence (5.51; 1.14), clinical relevance (5.95; SD 0.8), and patients/population relevance (4.87; SD 1.33), while the lowest scores were observed for the policy values (3.44; SD 1.53), local applicability (3,56; SD 1.47), and resources, tools, and capacity (3.49; SD 1.44) items. CPGs developed by government-supported organizations and developed in the UK and Canada had significantly higher recommendation quality scores with the AGREE-REX-D tool (p < 0.05) than their comparators.
Conclusions
We found that there is significant room for improvement of some CPGs such as the considerations of patient/population values, policy values, local applicability and resources, tools, and capacity. These findings may be considered a baseline upon which to measure future improvements in the quality of CPGs.
Assessment of the quality of recommendations from 161 clinical practice guidelines using the Appraisal of Guidelines for Research and Evaluation–Recommendations Excellence (AGREE-REX) instrument shows there is room for improvement