Are paediatric clinical practice guidelines trustworthy?

Abstract

To assess the methodological and reporting quality of paediatric clinical practice guidelines (CPGs) in National Guideline Clearinghouse (NGC) using the Appraisal of Guidelines for Research and Evaluation (AGREE) II instrument and Reporting Items for Practice Guidelines in Healthcare (RIGHT) standard. We identified all published CPGs through the NGC, and search records were screened in duplicate for inclusion. Two researchers evaluated the methodological and reporting quality of paediatric CPGs using the AGREE II instrument and RIGHT standard. STATA version 12.0 and SPSS version 22.0 software were used to analyse the related data. A total of 50 paediatric CPGs were included. The scores for all six domains by AGREE II instrument were presented as follows: scope and purpose (85.6 ± 9.59), stakeholder involvement (69.15 ± 19.32), rigour of development (73.19 ± 17.18), clarity of presentation (78.51 ± 14.36), applicability (54.61 ± 22.63) and editorial independence (68.42 ± 13.06). In the seven domains of the RIGHT standard, the reporting rate of the recommendation domain was the lowest (52.86%).The highest reporting rate was the other information domain, which was 68%.There was a high correlation between reporting the completeness of CPGs using the AGREE II instrument and RIGHT standard (r = 0.77, P < 0.001). The paediatric CPGs from NGC have good quality. There was a high correlation in the completeness of reporting for paediatric CPGs using the AGREE II instrument and RIGHT standard. It could be concluded that the CPGs of good methodological quality have good reporting quality. Maybe the researcher should effectively combine the AGREE II instrument and RIGHT standard in the development process of CPGs.