Characteristics of Recommendations for Emergency Health Systems Guidance Based on AGREE-HS

Abstract:

Recommendations， consensus-based syntheses of the best available evidence， constitute the core content of a guideline. This paper analyzes the characteristics of emergency health systems guidance documents （HSGs）， represented by the coronavirus disease-2019 （COVID-19） emergency HSG， regarding the item "recommendations" and its eight evaluation criteria in the Appraisal of Guidelines for Research and Evaluation for Health Systems （AGREE-HS）. The World Health Organization （WHO） standard HSGs were used as reference to explore the characteristics of emergency HSGs that are different from non-emergency HSGs. The results showed that the “recommendations” scored second after “topic” among the five items. Criterion 7 relating to operability scored higher than others among the eight criteria， and criterion 3 dealing with ethical principles scored lower than other criteria. Compared with the standard HSGs， the emergency HSGs showed decreased scores （P<0.05） of the item recommendations and the criteria of this item except criterion 4 concerning equity promotion. Among the HSGs with different developers， those developed by the WHO had higher （P<0.05） scores of recommendations than nationally developed HSGs， as evidenced by criterion 4， criterion 5 involving acceptability to and alignment with sociocultural and political interests， and criterion 8 for updating plans. The HSGs regarding global or country strategy scored higher （P<0.05） on criterion 2 relating to comprehensiveness than those involving specific guidance on clinical or material issues. Overall， the emergency HSGs， represented by the COVID-19 emergency HSGs， differ from the standard HSGs in a number of ways in terms of their recommendations. Emergency HSGs have more condensed content and weaker articulation of expected outcomes. They incline to put more emphasis on updating plans， rather than comprehensiveness or integrative requirements in terms of ethics， equity， and sociocultural and political interests.