Methods for living guidelines: early guidance based on practical experience. Paper 1: Introduction

Saskia Cheyne; David Fraile Navarro; Kelvin Hill; Steve McDonald; David Tunnicliffe; Heath White; Samuel Whittle; Justine Karpusheff; Reem Mustafa; Rebecca L Morgan; Shahnaz Sultan; Tari Turner; Australian Living Evidence Consortium Methods and Processes Working Group and Collaborators

doi:10.1016/j.jclinepi.2022.12.024

Methods for living guidelines: early guidance based on practical experience. Paper 1: Introduction

J Clin Epidemiol. 2023 Mar:155:84-96. doi: 10.1016/j.jclinepi.2022.12.024. Epub 2023 Jan 10.

Affiliations

¹ Australian Living Evidence Consortium, Cochrane Australia, School of Public Health & Preventive Medicine, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia; NHMRC Clinical Trials Centre, The University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia. Electronic address: saskia.cheyne@monash.edu.
² Australian Living Evidence Consortium, Cochrane Australia, School of Public Health & Preventive Medicine, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia; Australian Institute of Health Innovation, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia.
³ Stroke Foundation, Melbourne, Australia.
⁴ Australian Living Evidence Consortium, Cochrane Australia, School of Public Health & Preventive Medicine, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia.
⁵ Sydney School of Public Health, The University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia; Centre for Kidney Research, The Children's Hospital at Westmead, Sydney, Australia.
⁶ Australia and New Zealand Musculoskeletal Clinical Trials Network, Melbourne, Australia; The Queen Elizabeth Hospital, South Australia, Australia; Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine, School of Preventive Medicine and Public Health, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia.
⁷ National Institute of Health and Care Excellence, Manchester, UK.
⁸ University of Kansas Medical Center, KS, USA; The Evidence Foundation, Cleveland Heights, OH, USA.
⁹ The Evidence Foundation, Cleveland Heights, OH, USA; Department of Health Research Methods, Evidence and Impact, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada; School of Medicine, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH, USA.
¹⁰ The Evidence Foundation, Cleveland Heights, OH, USA; Division of Gastroenterology, Hepatology, and Nutrition, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA.

PMID: 36639038
DOI: 10.1016/j.jclinepi.2022.12.024

Abstract

Objectives: To introduce methods for living guidelines based on practical experiences by the Australian Living Evidence Consortium (ALEC), the National Institute of Health and Care Excellence (NICE), and the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA), with methodological support from the US Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development and Evaluations (GRADE) Network.

Study design and setting: Members of ALEC, NICE, and the US GRADE Network, convened a working group to share experiences of the methods used to develop living guidelines and outline the key differences between traditional and living guidelines methods.

Results: The guidance includes the following steps: 1) deciding if the guideline is a priority for a living approach, 2) preparing for living guideline development, 3) literature surveillance and frequency of searching, 4) assessment and synthesis of the evidence, 5) publication and dissemination, and 6) transitioning recommendations out of living mode.

Conclusion: This paper introduces methods for living guidelines and provides examples of the similarities and differences in approach across multiple organizations conducting living guidelines. It also introduces a series of papers exploring methods for living guidelines based on our practical experiences, including consumer involvement, selecting and prioritizing questions, search decisions, and methods decisions.

Keywords: COVID-19; Clinical practice guidelines; Decision-making; Guidelines; Living evidence; Methods.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Australia
Guidelines as Topic
Humans
Quality of Life*