The development methods of official GRADE articles and requirements for claiming the use of GRADE - A statement by the GRADE guidance group

Affiliations

• ¹ Department of Health Research Methods, Evidence, and Impact, Michael G. DeGroote, Cochrane Canada & McMaster GRADE Centres, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada; Institute for Evidence in Medicine, Medical Center and Faculty of Medicine, University of Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany; Department of Medicine, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada; Department of Biomedical Sciences, Humanitas University, Via Rita Levi Montalcini 4, 20090 Milano, Italy. Electronic address: schuneh@mcmaster.ca.
• ² School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia.
• ³ Department of Health Research Methods, Evidence, and Impact, Michael G. DeGroote, Cochrane Canada & McMaster GRADE Centres, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada; Department of Internal Medicine, American University of Beirut Medical Center, P.O.Box 11-0236/CRI (E15), Riad-El-Solh, Beirut 1107 2020, Lebanon.
• ⁴ HTA Region Stockholm, Centre for Health Economics, Informatics and Health Services Research (CHIS), Stockholm Health Care Services, Sweden; Department of Learning, Informatics, Management and Ethics, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.
• ⁵ Iberoamerican Cochrane Centre, Biomedical Research Institute Sant Pau (IIB Sant Pau-CIBERESP), Barcelona 08025, Spain.
• ⁶ Nottingham Ningbo GRADE Centre, University of Nottingham Ningbo China, Ningbo, China; Academic Unit of Lifespan and Population Health, School of Medicine, The University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK.
• ⁷ Department of Epidemiology Lazio Region, Via Cristoforo Colombo 112, 00147.
• ⁸ Institute for Evidence in Medicine, Medical Center and Faculty of Medicine, University of Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany; Cochrane Germany, Cochrane Germany Foundation, Freiburg, Germany.
• ⁹ Division for Health Services, Norwegian Institute of Public Health, Oslo, Norway; Institute of Health and Society, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway.
• ¹⁰ Department of Health Research Methods, Evidence, and Impact, Michael G. DeGroote, Cochrane Canada & McMaster GRADE Centres, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada; Department of Medicine, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.
• ¹¹ Department of Health Research Methods, Evidence, and Impact, Michael G. DeGroote, Cochrane Canada & McMaster GRADE Centres, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada; Department of Medicine, University of Kansas Medical Center, Kansas City, KS, USA.
• ¹² Department of Epidemiology and Data Science, Amsterdam UMC, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam Public Health institute, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
• ¹³ Urology Section, Minneapolis VA Health Care System, Minneapolis, MN, USA; Department of Urology, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA.