GAO Yicheng 1,2,3 , YU Zijin 4 , WANG Yaqi 1,2,3 , FANG Rui 5 , WANG Cheng 5 , LI Yuanyuan 5 , DENG Yingjie 5 , XIANG Wenyuan 5 , FEI Yutong 1,2,3
  • 1. Centre for Evidence-Based Chinese Medicine, Beijing University of Chinese Medicine, Beijing 100029, P. R. China;
  • 2. Institute for Excellence in Evidence-Based Chinese Medicine, Beijing University of Chinese Medicine, Beijing 100029, P. R. China;
  • 3. Beijing GRADE Center, Beijing University of Chinese Medicine, Beijing 100029, P. R. China;
  • 4. School of Acupuncture-Moxibustion and Tuina, Beijing University of Chinese Medicine, Beijing 100029, P. R. China;
  • 5. Affiliated Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Xinjiang Medical University, Urumqi 830000, P. R. China;
FEI Yutong, Email: yutong_fei@163.com
Clinical question; Variability; Outcome; Methodology; Clinical practice guideline
10.7507/1672-2531.202402106
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Objective The application of the coefficient of variation (CV) in the development of clinical practice guidelines is limited to evaluating the consistency of the consensus panel in clinical questions rating, and the application of variability was limited. This study presents the application and results of variability evaluation in the development of guidelines. Methods We conducted a large-scale clinical survey through questionnaire survey, and conducted two rounds of questionnaire survey and face-to-face consensus meeting for the consensus group. Means and CV were calculated for clinical questions and outcome importance ratings. We performed the summary and analysis by SPSS and Microsoft Excel. Results A total of 356 clinical survey questionnaires and two rounds survey in consensus panel were collected. We found that in the clinical survey and the first-round of the consensus panel, the CV was greater than 25% for all clinical questions regardless of the overall importance score. In the consensus panel, the results of the second-round were greatly changed. On the one hand, compared with the first-round, the CV of almost all clinical questions was smaller in the second-round, and the CV of high-priority clinical questions was less than 25%, while the clinical questions with a CV greater than 25% were of low-priority. In view of the CV of outcome importance, the clinical survey was similar to the results of the first-round of consensus panel. The CV of very important outcomes was less than 30%. In the second-round of consensus panel, the variability of very important outcomes was less than 20%. The higher the importance level of the outcome was, the smaller the CV was. Conclusion The study of variability evaluation has practical methodological value, which can assist clinical questions and outcomes priority selection, and help to fully consider the influence of different factors and values, and develop high-quality guidelines.