gms | German Medical Science

G-I-N Conference 2012

Guidelines International Network

22.08 - 25.08.2012, Berlin

Can we make guidelines better? An overview of the DECIDE project

Meeting Abstract

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  • S. Treweek - University of Dundee, Dundee, UK; Tayside Clinical Trials Unit, Dundee, UK

Guidelines International Network. G-I-N Conference 2012. Berlin, 22.-25.08.2012. Düsseldorf: German Medical Science GMS Publishing House; 2012. DocPL01

doi: 10.3205/12gin002, urn:nbn:de:0183-12gin0021

Published: July 10, 2012

© 2012 Treweek.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/deed.en). You are free: to Share – to copy, distribute and transmit the work, provided the original author and source are credited.


Outline

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DECIDE is a 5-year, EC Framework 7 project that aims to change the way research evidence and recommendations are presented in clinical guidelines http://www.decide-collaboration.eu/. Using GRADE as a starting point, it will develop and test new ways of presenting research information that are tailored to the information needs of health professionals, consumers and policymakers.

DECIDE is, for example, developing decision support that can be embedded in clinical guidelines, opening up the possibility of decision support tools being a routine part of all guidelines. In addition to supporting health professionals, these tools will also support discussions between health professionals and their patients. Summary of Findings tables, a central component of GRADE, are being made interactive so that users can step through them. For policymakers, DECIDE is producing an ‘evidence to decision’ framework to help with decisions about coverage. A glossary of terms is also being produced, which cuts across all the resources being produced. Many of these resources will be embedded in GRADEPro.

A strength of this work is that it is guided by iterative user testing; ideas that users do not like will be dropped. Promising presentation methods will be tested in randomised trials with the most promising methods going on to be tested in real guidelines produced by DECIDE partners such as NICE and WHO.

The term ‘guideline fatigue syndrome’ was coined, only partially in jest, in 2010 as ‘a debilitating condition characterised by irritability and overwhelming lethargy in the presence of guidelines’. We hope that DECIDE will help to make guidelines better suited to the information needs of their intended users and that DECIDE’s impact will be felt not only at a clinical level but for policymakers and consumers across diverse healthcare settings in Europe and elsewhere.