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Evaluation of the quality of COVID-19 guidance documents in anaesthesia using the Appraisal of Guidelines for Research and Evaluation II instrument.
O'Shaughnessy, Sinead M; Dimagli, Arnaldo; Kachulis, Bessie; Rahouma, Mohamed; Demetres, Michelle; Govea, Nicolas; Rong, Lisa Q.
  • O'Shaughnessy SM; Department of Anesthesiology, New York, NY, USA. Electronic address: oshaugs@gmail.com.
  • Dimagli A; Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery, New York, NY, USA.
  • Kachulis B; Department of Anesthesiology, New York, NY, USA.
  • Rahouma M; Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery, New York, NY, USA.
  • Demetres M; Information, Technology and Services, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY, USA.
  • Govea N; Department of Anesthesiology, New York, NY, USA.
  • Rong LQ; Department of Anesthesiology, New York, NY, USA.
Br J Anaesth ; 129(6): 851-860, 2022 12.
Article in English | MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-2085969
ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND:

Guidance documents are a valuable resource to clinicians to guide evidenced-based decision making. The quality of guidelines in anaesthesia and across other specialties has been demonstrated to be poor. COVID-19 presented an urgent need for immediate guidance for anaesthetists as frontline clinicians. The aim of this study was to evaluate the quality of COVID-19 guidance documents using the internationally validated Appraisal of Guidelines for Research & Evaluation (AGREE) II tool.

METHODS:

A search was conducted in Ovid EMBASE and Ovid MEDLINE to identify all COVID-19 anaesthesia guidance documents from 2020-2021. Thirty-eight guidance documents were selected for analysis by 4 independent appraisers using the AGREE II instrument, across its 6 domains and 23 items. A scoring threshold for high quality was agreed by the working group via consensus.

RESULTS:

Overall, the body of COVID-19 guidance documents achieved poor scores using AGREE II. Only 5% of documents met the high-quality criteria. Markers of quality included international and multi-institutional collaboration. Document title ('guideline' vs 'consensus statement'/ 'recommendations') did not yield any differences in domain scores and overall quality ratings. Compared with recent general anaesthesia guidelines, COVID-19 guidelines performed significantly worse.

CONCLUSIONS:

COVID-19 guidance documents published during the first two years of the pandemic lacked rigour and appropriate quality. This raises concern about their trustworthiness for use in clinical practice. Enhanced systems are required to ensure the integrity of rapidly formulated guidance.
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Full text: Available Collection: International databases Database: MEDLINE Main subject: COVID-19 / Anesthesia Type of study: Experimental Studies / Prognostic study / Reviews Limits: Humans Language: English Journal: Br J Anaesth Year: 2022 Document Type: Article

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Full text: Available Collection: International databases Database: MEDLINE Main subject: COVID-19 / Anesthesia Type of study: Experimental Studies / Prognostic study / Reviews Limits: Humans Language: English Journal: Br J Anaesth Year: 2022 Document Type: Article