The validity of recommendations from clinical guidelines: a survival analysis.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Clinical guidelines should be updated to maintain their validity. Our aim was to estimate the length of time before recommendations become outdated.

Methods

We used a retrospective cohort design and included recommendations from clinical guidelines developed in the Spanish National Health System clinical guideline program since 2008. We performed a descriptive analysis of references, recommendations and resources used, and a survival analysis of recommendations using the Kaplan-Meier method.

Results

We included 113 recommendations from 4 clinical guidelines with a median of 4 years since the most recent search (range 3.9-4.4 yr). We retrieved 39 136 references (range 3343-14 787) using an exhaustive literature search, 668 of which were related to the recomm

SUBMITTER: Martinez Garcia L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4216254 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature