REVIEW

Ethical aspects of creating clinical guidelines for practitioners

Dreytser ED1, Mudrova AV1, Pavlov ChS2
About authors

1 The First Moscow State Medical University of the Ministry of Health of Russia (Sechenov University), Moscow, Russia

2 Botkin City Clinical Hospital, Moscow, Russia

Correspondence should be addressed: Anastasia V Mudrova
Svetlogorsky proezd, 5, sq. 58, Moscow, 125476, Russia; ur.xednay@a.avordoom

About paper

Author contribution: Dreytser ED — search and analysis of literature, writing the text of the article; Mudrova AV — search and analysis of literature, writing the text of the article; Pavlov CS — development of the basic concept of the study, writing the text of the article, editing the text of the article.

Received: 2024-05-24 Accepted: 2024-06-16 Published online: 2024-06-30
|

Clinical guidelines represent documents that contain structured information based on scientific evidence on prevention, diagnosis, treatment and rehabilitation, and regulate professional activities of the medical community. Starting from January 1, 2025, it is planned to switch to the mandatory use of clinical recommendations approved by the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation, while the year of 2024 is an interim period for their application. However, various methodological and ethical issues arise while developing and discussing clinical recommendations. They include a conflict of interests of the authors, as well as aspects of its disclosure and settlement, accessibility of clinical recommendations for patients, as well as the discrepancy between the provisions of the recommendations and their evidence base such as results of systematic reviews and meta-analyses. Resolution of these problems will significantly improve the quality of clinical recommendations, and increase patient awareness of diseases and treatment approaches. This review analyzes a wide range of methodological problems related to the development of clinical recommendations, examines regulatory acts and ethical principles issued by government agencies, professional communities and international organizations, and makes suggestions to reduce the level of bias and, as a result, to increase the degree of evidence of clinical recommendations.

Keywords: meta-analysis, systematic review, Cochrane, clinical recommendations, conflict of interest, systematic error

КОММЕНТАРИИ (0)