The number of clinical practice guidelines for traditional Chinese patent medicine has been increasing recently. However, the quality of guidelines was still low compared to international guidelines. Considering the characteristics of traditional Chinese patent medicine, we suggested the following items should be taken into account when developing traditional Chinese patent medicine guidelines: ensuring the standardized guidelines of traditional Chinese patent medicine research problem is scientific based on reliable evidence; identifying the common questions according to these research problems; understanding the strength of evidence and how to recommend correctly; inviting some experts in other fields to take part in the development of guidelines; paying more attention on the changes of disease burden and the impact of new methods and technologies when developing the guideline; paying more attention to the non-consensus opinions and evidence supporting these opinions; insisting on quality is the priority, while speed is secondary.
ObjectiveTo analyse the quality of implementation in clinical application guidelines of the Chinese patent medicines for the treatment of common diseases. MethodsWe retrieved clinical application guidelines of the Chinese patent medicines for the treatment of common diseases published from February, 2019 to August, 2022 in databases. The clinical practice guideline (CPG) implementation evaluation tool was used to evaluate the implementation of the included guidelines. ResultsA total of 29 guidelines were included. The implementation quality of included guidelines was moderate. Thirteen (44.8%) were high quality and 16 (55.2%) were moderate quality. ConclusionThe quality of implementation of clinical application guidelines of the Chinese patent medicines for the treatment of common diseases is higher than that of other traditional Chinese medicine CPG. The CPG implementation evaluation tool can be used in traditional Chinese medicine CPGs and particularity of TCM should also be considered.
In the process of formulation, traditional Chinese medicine clinical practice guidelines are often faced with the dilemma of lack of evidence. Guidelines development groups tend to make final decisions based on expert experience or expert opinion, but the limitations of cognitive bias reduce the credibility and transparency of the guidelines. By clarifying the difference between the expert experience and expert opinion and expert evidence, the expert evidence of traditional Chinese medicine discipline advantages and necessity, providing the recommendation form link using expert evidence methodology design and implementation details, retaining the empirical characteristics of traditional Chinese medicine and improving the lack of evidence, has certain practical application value.