A critical appraisal of urolithiasis clinical practice guidelines using the AGREE II instrument

Background: The Appraisal of Guidelines for Research and Evaluation II (AGREE II) instrument was developed to improve the methodological quality of clinical practice guidelines (CPGs). High-quality guidelines can provide reliable recommendations for different clinical issues. Currently, there is no quality appraisal of CPGs for urolithiasis. This study evaluated the quality of evidence-based CPGs for urolithiasis and provided new insights into improving guideline quality on urolithiasis. Methods: Systematic reviews were conducted to identify urolithiasis CPGs in PubMed, electronic databases, and websites of medical associations from January 2009 to July 2022. The quality of included CPGs was evaluated by four reviewers using the AGREE II instrument. Subsequently, the scores of all domains in the AGREE II instrument were calculated. Results: A total of 19 urolithiasis CPGs were identified for review: seven from Europe, six from USA, three from international union, two from Canada, and one from Asia. The agreement among reviewers was rated good [intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC), 0.806; 95% CI: 0.779-0.831]. The domains with the highest scores were scope and purpose (69.7%, 54.2-86.1%) and clarity of presentation (76.8%, 59.7-90.3%). The domains of stakeholder involvement (44.9%, 19.4-84.7%) and applicability (48.5%, 30.2-72.9%) gained the lowest score. Only five guidelines (26.3%) were considered "strongly recommended". Conclusions: The overall quality of the eligible CPGs was relatively high; however, future work is still needed in the domains of rigor of development, editorial independence, applicability, and stakeholder involvement.