RESUMO
The background,features,dimension and contents of 22 international appraisal tools for clinical guidelines were analyzed,and their history,evolution,rules and problems were described,in order to provide the evidence for developing appraisal tools for domestic clinical guidelines. In the study,it was found that the guideline evaluation tools have been classified and there is a constant strive to achieve the balance between comprehensiveness and practicability. But the existing evaluation tools are insufficient for clinical practical contents of guidelines. The scoring system should be improved. In addition,conflicts of interest,value choice and patients' involvement should be considered increasingly, and should become an important part of the guideline evaluation tools.