Appraisal of clinical practice guidelines and consensus statements on obstetric anaesthesia: a systematic review using the AGREE II instrument

Objectives Despite the publication of hundreds of trials on obstetric anaesthesia, the management of these conditions remains suboptimal. We aimed to assess the quality and consistency of guidance documents for obstetric anaesthesia.Design This is a systematic review and quality assessment using the Appraisal of Guidelines for Research and Evaluation (AGREE) II methodology.Data sources Data sources include PubMed and Embase (8 June 2023), three Chinese academic databases, six guideline databases (7 June 2023) and Google and Google scholar (1 August 2023).Eligibility criteria We included the latest version of international and national/regional clinical practice guidelines and consensus statements for the anaesthetic management of pregnant patients during labour, non-operative delivery, operative delivery and selected aspects of perioperative monitoring, postpartum care and analgesia, published in English or Chinese.Data extraction and synthesis Two reviewers independently screened the searched items and extracted data. Four reviewers independently scored documents using AGREE II. Recommendations from all documents were tabulated and visualised in a coloured grid.Results Twenty-two guidance documents (14 clinical practice guidelines and 8 consensus statements) were included. Included documents performed well in the domains of scope and purpose (median 76.4%, IQR 69.4%-79.2%) and clarity of presentation (median 72.2%, IQR 61.1%-80.6%), but were unsatisfactory in applicability (median 21.9%, IQR 13.5%-27.1%) and editorial independence (median 47.9%, IQR 6.3%-73.2%). The majority of obstetric anaesthesia guidelines or consensus centred on different topics. Less than 30% of them specifically addressed the management of obstetric anaesthesia perioperatively. Recommendations were concordant on the perioperative preparation, and on some indications for the choice of anaesthesia method. Substantially different recommendations were provided for some items, especially for preoperative blood type and screen, and for the types and doses of neuraxial administration.Conclusions The methodological quality in guidance documents for obstetric anaesthesia necessitates enhancement. Despite numerous trials in this area, evidence gaps persist for specific clinical queries in this field. One potential approach to mitigate these challenges involves the endorsement of standardised guidance development methods and the synthesis of robust clinical evidence, aimed at diminishing difference in recommendations.