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Clinical practice guidelines: be selective

Prescrire examines clinical practice guidelines, to help readers identify which ones will help them to improve patient care.

Recent years have seen a proliferation in France and elsewhere of "practice guidelines" produced by public institutions or associations of health professionals. These guidelines ought to be useful, since they directly support caregivers’ practice and, when they are of good quality, they are a genuine aid in offering better care.

Unfortunately not all clinical practice guidelines are of adequate quality. Prescrire has therefore examined the French guidelines closely, in particular those issued by the French National Authority for Health, the Haute autorité de santé (HAS). The aim is to help readers identify which guidelines will help them provide better care, in other words, guidelines that are based on solid evidence, independent, and adapted to practitioners' needs; and which guidelines, on the other hand, are better ignored.

Internationally accepted criteria have been established to gauge the usefulness, quality, independence and reliability of clinical practice guidelines. Prescrire's assessment takes into account the application of quality criteria, the coherence of the recommendations and the evidence, the clarity of the explanations of the risk-benefits balances of the various interventions and their ease of application.

©Prescrire April 2007

Source: "Guides de pratique clinique : faire le tri et savoir jeter" Rev Prescrire 2007 ; 27 (282) : 304-306.

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