Bmc Med Res Methodol
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Bmc Med Res Methodol · Feb 2011
FORM: an Australian method for formulating and grading recommendations in evidence-based clinical guidelines.
Clinical practice guidelines are an important element of evidence-based practice. Considering an often complicated body of evidence can be problematic for guideline developers, who in the past may have resorted to using levels of evidence of individual studies as a quasi-indicator for the strength of a recommendation. This paper reports on the production and trial of a methodology and associated processes to assist Australian guideline developers in considering a body of evidence and grading the resulting guideline recommendations. ⋯ The framework has now been widely adopted by Australian guideline developers who find it to be a logical and intuitive way to formulate and grade recommendations in clinical practice guidelines.