Researchers from the Iberoamerican Cochrane Centre - Biomedical Research Institute Sant Pau (IIB Sant Pau) have recently published the study “Updated clinical guidelines experience major reporting limitations” in Implementation Science.

The authors conducted a systematic assessment of the reporting of the updating process with the Checklist for the Reporting of Updated Guidelines (CheckUp) in 60 updated CPGs published in 2015.

Suboptimal reporting was found in all domains (presentation, editorial independence, and methodology); however, the most room for improvement was found in the presentation and methodology domain. Specifically, the presentation and justification items at recommendations levels and the methods used for the external review and implementation were poorly reported. The guidelines published in European or international institutions had statistically significant higher scores than others

The authors recommend using CheckUp to assess the updating process in updated CGs and as a blueprint to inform methods and reporting strategies in updating.

Reference: Vernooij RWM, Martnez García L, Florez ID, Hildago Armas L, Poorthuis MHF, Brouwers M, Alonso-Coello P. Updated clinical guidelines experience major reporting limitations. Implement Sci. 2017;12(1):120.

https://implementationscience.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13012-017-0651-3