What is “quality of evidence” and why is it important to clinicians?

By G. Guyatt, Andrew D. Oxman, Regina Kunz, G. Vist, Y. Falck-Ytter, Holger J. Schünemann. British medical journal, 2008

2,968 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Guideline developers use a bewildering variety of systems to rate the quality of the evidence underlying their recommendations. Some are facile, some confused, and others sophisticated but complex

Subfields: General Health Professions, Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health, Statistics and Probability

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/2f0b5c35c5122bc4830af3d2a63e8a9a4ad53c9e

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In General Health Professions

1. I. Graham
2. Renee H. Rhodes
3. Matthias Egger
4. L. Giangregorio
5. Douglas G. Altman
6. David Moher
7. K. F. Schulz

In Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health

1. J. Brożek
2. Holger J. Schünemann
3. Judith M. Martin
4. M. Gerber
5. Henry F. Chambers
6. Grace Lee
7. Mark S. Tremblay
8. I. Graham

In Statistics and Probability

1. J. Brożek
2. Holger J. Schünemann
3. Judith M. Martin
4. G. Faulkner
5. M. Gerber
6. Henry F. Chambers
7. Grace Lee
8. Mark S. Tremblay

Citations in the corpus

• Sexual transmission of HIV according to viral load and antiretroviral therapy: systematic review and meta-analysis (2009, background): “The risk of HIV transmission from people on highly active antiretroviral therapy is likely to be very low but it is nevertheless important that statements on transmission risk are based on thorough evaluation of the available data [37,38].”
• Intra-abdominal hypertension and the abdominal compartment syndrome: updated consensus definitions and clinical practice guidelines from the World Society of the Abdominal Compartment Syndrome (2013, methodology): “The Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development, and Evaluation (GRADE) system for clinical practice guideline developers was used to provide consistency in identifying and rating the quality of available evidence and the strength of management suggestions and recommendations [16–22].”
• Clinical Practice Guidelines for the Management of Pain, Agitation, and Delirium in Adult Patients in the Intensive Care Unit (2013, background): “On the basis of this information, most people might pursue this course of action (or not), but a significant number of patients and providers would choose an alternative course of action (40, 43, 44).”
• Clinical Practice Guideline for the Diagnosis and Management of Group A Streptococcal Pharyngitis: 2012 Update by the Infectious Diseases Society of America (2012, methodology): “The GRADE approach offers a structured, systematic, and transparent process to formulate recommendations on the basis of explicit criteria that go beyond just the quality of available evidence (Table 1 ) [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] .”
• Allergic Rhinitis and its Impact on Asthma (ARIA) guidelines: 2010 revision. (2010, background): “panel’s confidence in an estimate of the effect was adequate to support a particular recommendation.(15) Assessments of the quality of evidence for each TABLE I.”