gms | German Medical Science

Background: Conflicts of interest should be avoided as much as possible in the development of guidelines. In a recent National Dutch form to prevent undesirable bias by conflicts of interest most attention has been paid to financial conflicts of interest. However, members of guideline development groups might have intellectual conflicts of interest as well. This is especially the case in a small country as The Netherlands, were experts are relatively scarce. Experts who have been appointed in the guideline development group because they have done research on the topic, tend to overestimate the importance of their own results and thrive overenthousiastically for a translation of their findings into one or more of the recommendations.

Context: guideline development

Descrition of best practice: Some examples of intellectual conflicts of interest which occurred in the guideline development program of the Dutch College of General Practiotioners during the past decennia will be discussed. Afterwards I will address the question whether these conflicts of interest can be adequately tackled by a thorough methodology of guideline production including comment phase and authorization procedure. Finally I propose possible additional strategies to diminish intellectual influences and discuss their desirability with the audience.

Lessons for guideline developers and guideline adapters: To give insight in the influence and the possible treats of intellectual conflicts and to discuss possible strategies to abandon these influence.