[Quality assessment of clinical practice guidelines of the Chilean explicit guarantees in healthcare program].

Background: High quality practice guidelines are of utmost importance in clinical medicine.

Aim: To evaluate the methodological quality of Clinical Practice Guidelines (CPG) for 80 high burden health conditions included in the “Explicit Guarantees in Healthcare” (EGH) program available on July 2014, elaborated and published by the Ministry of Health of Chile.

Material And Methods: A cross-sectional observational study using the Appraisal of Guidelines Research and Evaluation (AGREE II) instrument to evaluate the methodological quality of the current CPGs for EGH. Two reviewers assessed each CPG independently, obtaining standardized scores according for each dimension included in the AGREE II instrument.

Results: Eighty one CPGs were evaluated. They were generally considered of reasonable quality, obtaining high scores in the following domains: Scope and Purpose (81.3%), Clarity of Presentation (78.6%) and Editorial Independence (76.5%). The following domains had a score under 60%: Stakeholder Involvement (51.3%), Rigor of Development (41.4%) and Applicability (33.6%).

Conclusions: The CPGs elaborated for the EGH program have high scores in domains such as the Scope and Purpose, Clarity of Presentation and Editorial Independence. Their scores in other dimensions such as Stakeholder Involvement, Rigor of Development and Applicability can be still improved.