• Fatima Rizvi, Anza Rizvi, Kevin Chorath, Neeraj V Suresh, Jinggang Ng, Jacob Harris, Deepak Lakshmipathy, Louis Xavier-Barrette, and Karthik Rajasekaran.
• Sidney Kimmel Medical College at Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia, PA.
• Pain Manag Nurs. 2024 Oct 16.

PurposeWhile several clinical practice guidelines (CPGs) exist to guide clinical decision-making in patients with generalized cancer pain, to date there has been no comprehensive review of their quality. Our aim was to address this deficiency via the Appraisal of Guidelines for Research and Evaluation (AGREE II) tool.DesignPreferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guideline-based systematic literature search followed by AGREE II appraisal of identified CPGs.MethodsEmbase, MEDLINE via PubMed, and Scopus were searched from inception to March 3, 2021, for relevant CPGs. Four authors (FR, AR, JN, JH) independently performed assessments and evaluations of the selected CPGs using the AGREE II instrument. Scaled domain percentage scores were calculated with 60% as the satisfactory quality threshold. Intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs) were also calculated to assess interrater reliability.ResultsTwelve guidelines were selected for inclusion. Two guidelines were classified high quality, three guidelines as average quality, and seven as low quality. Domains of clarity of presentation (82.41% ± 18.20%) and scope and purpose (56.48% ± 30.59%) received the highest mean scores, while domains of applicability (44.53% ± 26.61%) and stakeholder involvement (36.81% ± 21.24%) received the lowest. ICCs showed high consistency between reviewers (range 0.85-0.98).ConclusionsMost CPGs for generalized cancer pain are of low quality. Future guidelines can be improved by better-defining scope and purpose, stakeholder involvement, rigor of development, applicability, and editorial independence during development.Clinical ImplicationsWe hope these critiques improve the quality of published guidelines to promote an improved quality of care and method to measure quality outcomes.Copyright © 2024. Published by Elsevier Inc.

5 keywords...

hide…