Article type
Year
Abstract
Background: Despite the availability of clinical practice guidelines (CPGs), optimal control is not achieved in many parts of the world. In 2011, the Institute of Medicine emphasized on the need for recommendations to be informed by systematic reviews. It is unclear whether recent CPGs on the management of hypertension meet this standard.
Objectives: To assess whether recent national hypertension CPGs refer to current Cochrane reviews that relate to the recommendations of these CPGs.
Methods: MEDLINE, EMBASE, guideline agency websites and Google were searched for CPGs written in English on the management of hypertension for any practice setting published between January 2010–March 2012. Four raters independently appraised each CPG using the AGREE-II instrument and 2 reviewers independently extracted the data. The Cochrane Library (CL) was searched for published reviews using ‘Hypertension’ [MeSH] from 2007 onwards. Reviews published 1 year prior to the CPG’s publication date were considered ‘available’ reviews. Two reviewers independently assessed their relevance for the CPGs’ recommendations.
Results: Five CPGs were identified. The overall quality ranged 2.5–6 out of 7 points. The highest scores were for ‘clarity of presentation’ and the lowest were for ‘rigour of development’. The CL search retrieved 65 reviews; 32 of them were assessed as irrelevant. The Australian 2010 update, the South African 2011 and the Canadian 2012 cited no Cochrane reviews. The numbers of potential Cochrane reviews based on the areas addressed by these 3 CPGs are 23, 29 and 24 respectively. The Saudi CPG 2011 cited 4/29 reviews (all related to pregnancy and childbirth. The NICE CPG cited 1/21 recent review.
Conclusions: Despite the increased production of Cochrane reviews, recent CPGs barely referred to relevant reviews. The reasons for this need to be explored and The Cochrane Collaboration need to consider the practical means for increasing the uptake by guidelines developers.
Objectives: To assess whether recent national hypertension CPGs refer to current Cochrane reviews that relate to the recommendations of these CPGs.
Methods: MEDLINE, EMBASE, guideline agency websites and Google were searched for CPGs written in English on the management of hypertension for any practice setting published between January 2010–March 2012. Four raters independently appraised each CPG using the AGREE-II instrument and 2 reviewers independently extracted the data. The Cochrane Library (CL) was searched for published reviews using ‘Hypertension’ [MeSH] from 2007 onwards. Reviews published 1 year prior to the CPG’s publication date were considered ‘available’ reviews. Two reviewers independently assessed their relevance for the CPGs’ recommendations.
Results: Five CPGs were identified. The overall quality ranged 2.5–6 out of 7 points. The highest scores were for ‘clarity of presentation’ and the lowest were for ‘rigour of development’. The CL search retrieved 65 reviews; 32 of them were assessed as irrelevant. The Australian 2010 update, the South African 2011 and the Canadian 2012 cited no Cochrane reviews. The numbers of potential Cochrane reviews based on the areas addressed by these 3 CPGs are 23, 29 and 24 respectively. The Saudi CPG 2011 cited 4/29 reviews (all related to pregnancy and childbirth. The NICE CPG cited 1/21 recent review.
Conclusions: Despite the increased production of Cochrane reviews, recent CPGs barely referred to relevant reviews. The reasons for this need to be explored and The Cochrane Collaboration need to consider the practical means for increasing the uptake by guidelines developers.