Quality Evaluation of the Non-Variceal Upper Gastrointestinal Bleeding Guidelines/Consensuses via AGREE II Tools

Non-variceal upper gastrointestinal bleeding (NUGIB) is a common disease in clinical practice; and many related guidelines/consensuses have been published. The authors assessed the methodological quality of the NUGIB guidelines/ consensuses published in English, in order to uncover which guidelines/consensuses are of better quality in methodology and the deficiency in the area. Appraisal of guidelines for research and evaluation instrument tools were adopted to assess the quality of the guidelines/consensuses. Each guideline/consensus was assessed independently by three researchers. Intra-class correlation (ICC) among researchers was retrieved to reflect reliability. Eight guidelines/consensuses regarding the management of NUGIB published in English were obtained. The ICCs among the evaluators were all above 0.75, indicating satisfactory reliability. Quality evaluation of the obtained guidelines via the AGREE II tools showed that the overall quality of the included guidelines/consensuses was moderate in all domains. A few guidelines/consensuses were better developed in scientific and methodological aspects than the others. The grades of recommendations with the guidelines/consensuses, according to a brief and preliminary scheme, were of practical value. Moreover, the recommendations regarding the pharmacological treatments in the guidelines/consensuses above, are various according to the study. Overall, the quality of some NUGIB guidelines/consensuses were generally acceptable and applicable, those yet are with minor deficiencies. The others may be improved according to the AGREE II items, likely by evaluating the quality of the guidelines/consensuses when the guidelines/consensuses are updated.