Practising physicians are nowadays presented with official guidelines on
the treatments they should give their patients. In an article published in
PLoS Medicine, researchers have attempted to grade the quality of evidence
used in drawing up the recommendations contained in guidelines for the
treatment of patients with diabetes, high blood pressure and dyslipidemia
(abnormal levels of fats in the blood).
Finlay McAlister and colleagues made use of the Canadian Hypertension
Education Program (CHEP) grading scheme. They conclude that most
recommendations
are based on the results of well-conducted clinical trials. However, less
than a third of the recommendations were found to be based on high-quality
evidence applicable to the populations, treatments and outcomes specified
in guideline recommendations. The researchers say that physicians should
be
aware that official guidelines are not necessarily based on high-quality
evidence. They emphasize the need to make the evidence underlying
guideline
recommendations more transparent by using an extended grading system, like
the CHEP scheme. If this were done, the researchers suggest, it would help
clinicians to apply guideline recommendations appropriately to their
individual patients
Citation: McAlister FA, van Diepen S, Padwal RS, Johnson JA, Majumdar SR
(2007) How evidence-based are the recommendations in evidence based
guidelines? PLoS Med 4(8):
e250.
Click here.
About PLoS Medicine
PLoS Medicine is an open access, freely available international medical
journal. It publishes original research that enhances our understanding of
human health and disease, together with commentary and analysis of
important global health issues.
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About the Public Library of Science
The Public Library of Science (PLoS) is a non-profit organization of
scientists and physicians committed to making the world's scientific and
medical
literature a freely available public resource.
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