There is an increase in published studies relevant to the development of patient version of guidelines (PVGs). We reviewed, summarised and analysed the current developments in this field, with the aim of informing domestic scholars of the factors to consider when developing quality PVGs. We proposed three recommendations: (1) the concept of patient guidelines needs to be better defined; (2) a platform for the dissemination of PVGs should be established to support their implementation; and (3) a standardised PVGs development methodology should be developed to ensure the quality of the PVGs.
Subpopulation treatment effect pattern plot (STEPP) method is a method for examining the relationship between treatment effects and continuous covariates and is characterized by dividing the study population into multiple overlapping subpopulations to be analyzed based on continuous covariate values. STEPP method has a different purpose than traditional subgroup analyses, and STEPP has a clear advantage in exploring the relationship between treatment effects and continuous covariates. In this study, the concepts, advantages, and subpopulation delineation methods of the STEPP method are introduced, and the specific operation process and result interpretation methods of STEPP method analysis using the STEPP package in R language are presented with examples.