[Quality of guidelines for the treatment of alcohol related disorders -- a systematic review and content analysis]

Alcohol related disorders (dependent, harmful or at risk drinking) display a high prevalence in the community. We systematically reviewed and assessed the quality of available guidelines in the context of developing an evidence-based pathway of care for the treatment of those disorders in primary care.

We searched the internet for guidelines published in English, German, Italian, French or Spanish. The search was performed using the following sources: Internet Search engines, guideline providing agencies via internet, MEDLINE, PsychInfo and Cochrane Library. In addition, national professional societies were contacted to provide existing guidelines. We used a standardized instrument to assess methodological quality in three dimensions using dichotomous items: methodology of guideline development (21 items), content of guideline (17 items) and application (6 items). Each guideline was evaluated independently by two reviewers (MB, SH). Disagreement was documented using a disagreement protocol and resolved by discussion. Results were expressed as percent of total (domain) score.

We included 9 published guidelines and 2 drafts. The methodological quality was heterogeneous. The mean quality score was below 50 % of the maximum score. Major flaws were lack of clear grounding in evidence-based medicine, too much information provided, lack of consumer involvement or insufficient involvement of all care providers as well as lack of implementation strategies. The scores of the guidelines published by professional societies for primary care were higher than the others.

As demonstrated by the identified guidelines, more interdisciplinary panels and evidence-based processes need to be incorporated in the development process of guidelines for the treatment of alcohol related disorders. Our findings suggest that it might be advisable and effective to adapt already available valid and evidence-based guidelines or to collaborate with international working groups for the development of guidelines. There is a strong need for the scientific evaluation of implementation processes.