Development of a multinational clinical practice guideline: a practical structured procedure

We describe a structured guideline procedure that can be adjusted to the requirements of other multinational guidelines.
Methods: Clinical scientists with experience of organizing and contributing to guidelines initiated this guideline project. A balance between scientific evidence and clinical experience was achieved by involving European specialist societies and physicians from 18 European countries. For persons contributing to the guideline process, different levels of involvement were defined. The tasks were assigned to different groups of persons, which formed scientific institutions.
Results: We describe organizational structures and institutions, a stepwise approach to tasks, and illustrate the multistep guideline development procedure in a flowchart diagram that shows the workflow and the assigned responsibilities and provides further details for the execution of each step, including timelines. The process is split into 4 phases: Foundation, Preparation, Voting and Publication.
Discussion: This structured procedure can serve as a blueprint for future multinational initiatives and may also aid future attempts to standardize and harmonize the guideline development processes. Although the described structured procedure is for a diagnostic guideline, it may also be appropriate for therapeutic guidelines by adjusting the acceptance criteria for statements and recommendations.

Source: Digestive Diseases - August 19, 2020 Category: Gastroenterology Source Type: research