Quality Assessment of Clinical Practice Guidelines for Ankle Sprains Using the Appraisal of Guidelines for Research and Evaluation II Assessment Tool

Abstract

This study aimed to evaluate clinical practice guidelines (CPGs) for ankle sprains using the Appraisal of Guidelines for Research and Evaluation II tool, using electronic databases (GIN, PubMed, EMBASE, NCKM, CNKI, CiNii, WanFang database, RISS, and SCOPUS), to suggest strategies for improvement in the future. The search was performed on April 23, 2021 and 10 CPGs were selected for evaluation. Three CPGs were recommended without modification (Class A scores), five were recommended with modification (Class B), and two were not recommended (Class C scores). The CPG domain that received the lowest score was “applicability.” The traditional medicine CPGs scored higher [Class A (<i>n</i> = 1) and Class B (<i>n</i> = 1)] than the conventional Western medicine CPGs [Class A (<i>n</i> = 2), Class B (<i>n</i> = 4), and Class C (<i>n</i> = 2)] and were considered to be more methodical. In the future, more research into traditional medicine is required.