Evidence base in guideline generation in diabetes

Abstract

During recent years much emphasis has been on the validity, reliability, reproducibility, clinical applicability, clarity, multidisciplinary process, scheduled review and documentation of clinical practice guidelines (CPGs). Still, CPGs show substantial variance in methodological quality. The present paper mainly focuses on two aspects that are particularly critical and contemporary from the perspective of evidence-based medicine: patient centredness and shared decision making, and conflict of interest. Sophisticated patient and consumer involvement at all stages of CPG development could be judged as being the gold standard. However, co-opting patients or consumer representatives and using other techniques of active patient involvement does not replace individual patient preferences in clinical decision-making processes. Current CPGs do not meet patient needs, since they do not provide concise, easy-to-read summaries of the benefits and risks of medicines together with more comprehensive scientific data as a prerequisite for informed or shared decision making. The vast majority of CPG panels have a financial conflict of interest (COI) and under-reporting is common. Not all organisations producing CPGs have set up COI policies, and existing policies vary widely. To solve the problem, CPG experts have recommended that methodologists without any important COI should lead the development process and have primary responsibility. There is a lot of room for other improvements through network transnational activities in the field of CPG development. Waste of time and resources should be avoided through sharing published and unpublished data identified, appraised and extracted for guideline development. The EASD could provide such a clearing house.