Analysis of Development Method of Clinical Practice Guidelines in Primary Care

Abstract

Objective To analyze the development method of existing clinical practice guidelines in primary care to inform the future development of high-quality clinical practice guidelines in primary care. Methods Chinese and English databases and guideline websites were systematically searched for clinical practice guidelines in primary care published from January 1, 2019 to December 31, 2021, with additional searches conducted by reference tracing and Google Scholar. After screening was completed, basic information on included studies and information related to the development methodology was extracted and analyzed. Results Twenty primary guidelines published between 2019 and 2021 were finally included, 95% of which originated from developed countries. The most common developing institutions were universities/research institutes (8, 40%), the disciplines with the most attention were nursing (4, 20%), infectious diseases (3, 15%), and gastroenterology (3, 15%), and the areas of the guidelines were mainly focused on management (4, 20%), treatment (4, 20%) and nursing (3, 15%).None of the guidelines were registered, and 11 (55%) guidelines used evidence grading and strength of recommendation criteria. Mean reporting on the 18 topics in the Guideline 2.0 inventory was 40%, with relatively good reporting on the topics of guideline panelists (85%), conflict of interest considerations (75%), and evidence retrieval and incorporation (75%), and low reporting on the topics of organizing-budgeting-planning-training (15%), and summarizing the evidence and considering other information (15%). Conclusions The number of clinical practice guidelines in primary care that explicitly report on the methodology and process of development is low, and there is insufficient consideration of the relevant topics in the Guideline 2.0 checklist. It is recommended that future research focus on standardizing the reporting of clinical practice guidelines in primary care and developing the methodological guidebook for guideline development.

Keywords

• clinical practice guidelines in primary care
• guideline development
• evidence-based medicine