Guidelines, Position Statements, and Standardizations: Documents to Assist Medical Practice

Clinical practice guidelines

CPG are made up of systematically developed statements, and they are designed to support decision-making processes in patient care, under specific conditions. Unlike documents that provides guidance, guidelines address a topic where there is moderate to high quality evidence, generally from randomized trials with a satisfactory number of participants, to make the most appropriate clinical practice possible.

In drafting them, a process is used to summarize the evidence and provide a standardized method to express the classes of recommendations with their respective levels of evidence. For a guideline to be reliable, it is advisable to observe the following criteria: a) be based on systematic reviews of the literature; b) be developed by a multidisciplinary and experienced panel of experts; c) consider the values and preferences of patients, as well as their subgroups; d) be based on an explicit and transparent process that minimizes distortions, biases, and conflicts of interest; e) provide a clear explanation of the relationships between alternative care options and clinical outcomes, and f) be updated when important new evidence warrants changes to recommendations.

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