Assignment Objectives:
For this assignment, you will appraise a clinical practice guideline (CPG). The purpose of this assignment is to acquaint you with a clinical practice guideline as well as the appraisal process to determine the feasibility of the CPG.
Assignment Instructions:
Read/Review the clinical practice guideline provided below:
You will appraise the clinical practice guideline using the AGREE II Tool Download AGREE II Tool for evaluating Clinical Practice Guidelines. You must download the document to your computer, save it, and then open the document. You should then be able to type in the comment section for each of the items to provide your responses. You will not be able to type in the document if you just download it here without saving it first. Here is the user’s guide for the AGREE II Tool Download user’s guide for the AGREE II Tool Beginning on page 11 of the guide, you will find a detailed explanation of the purpose for each section of the tool, an overview of how to score that section, as well as where to locate this information in your CPG.
A rationale and “answer” must be provided for each item in the comment section so that we can “see” how you formulated your response to that section.
How to Read the Guideline to Complete the Critique Assignment
The guideline that you are being asked to review contains many sections within the overall document. Pages 1-3 and 145-148 decribe the process for developing the entire document. Pages 3-7 provide a list of key recommendations found within the individual sections of the document for immediate access. This is followed by the references for the document (a complete reference list is on pages 150-162). Beginning on page 9, you will find an indepth discussion of each of the different components of the guideline. Each section is laid out in the same manner:
- Guideline Statements: This is where you will find a summary of the recommendations made based on the review of hte literature
- Rationale: This section provides a rationale for the development of that specific guideline as well as a discussion of the strength of the evidence identified for this guideline.
- Potential Benefits and Harms: This section provides a discussion of the benefits and harms associated with using or not using these recommendations. There may also be a discussion of the need for future research in this area.
- Implementation: This section provides a discussion of how to use these recommendations in practice. Other resources that can be used to enhace the assessment of this section are also provided. Barriers to implementation of the guideline are also discussed.
Typically, a clinical practice guideline will be one document that contains recommendations for practice for one particular subject. Since the psychiatric evaluation contains many components, the guideline you are asked to review contains several “mini” guidelines which make up the overall guideline for the “Psychiatric Evaluation of Adults.” You will use the information on pages 1-9 and 145-148 to answer the majority of the critique items in Domains 1-3 of the AGREE II tool.
To answer items 11 and 12 in Domain 3 and the items in Domains 4-5, you will choose ONE of the guidelines to follow through the Guidelines and Implementation section, the Review of Available Evidence section. and the Quality Measurement Considerations section of the CPG. For example, if you choose to do an indepth review of Guideline III: Assessment of Suicide Risk, you will look on pages 18-23, 57-65, and 139-140 to answer the specific questions about that guideline.
