Assessing the methodological quality of the Canadian Psychiatric Association's anxiety and depression clinical practice guidelines.

Abstract

Clinical practice guidelines (CPGs) endeavour to incorporate the best available research evidence together with the clinically informed opinions of leading experts in order to guide clinical practice when dealing with a given condition. There has been increased interest in CPGs that are evidence based and that promote best practice, a central component of which is incorporating the best available research predicated on strong study designs. Despite this soaring interest, there remains heterogeneity in the methodological quality of many CPGs, which may have an effect on the quality of services that clinicians offer. In light of this, this study examined the quality of the methodology used to develop two CPGs of the Canadian Psychiatric Association (CPA). The CPA's guidelines for the management of anxiety disorders (2006) and for the treatment of depressive disorders (2001) were assessed by trained raters using the Appraisal of Guidelines for Research and Evaluation II Instrument scale. The blind ratings of three trained raters demonstrated that the anxiety and depression CPGs had a number of strengths and important weaknesses. Implications for the development of future CPGs on anxiety and depression, including recommendations to improve guideline quality in psychiatry in particular, are discussed.