A systematic breakdown of the levels of evidence supporting the European Society of Cardiology guidelines.

ABSTRACT:

Aims

Reviews of clinical practice guidelines have repeatedly concluded that only a minority of guideline recommendations are supported by high-quality evidence from randomised controlled trials. The aim of this study is to evaluate whether these findings apply to the whole cardiovascular evidence base or specific recommendation types and actions.

Methods

All recommendations from current European Society of Cardiology guidelines were extracted with their class (I, treatment is beneficial; II, treatment is possibly beneficial; III, treatment is harmful) and level of evidence (A, multiple randomised controlled trials/meta-analyses; B, single randomised controlled trials/large observational studies; C, expert opinion/small studies). Recommendations were categorised by type (ther

SUBMITTER: van Dijk WB 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6886117 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature