G4G Resources

Select a relevant and useful scope

Developing NICE guidelines: the manual – The scope is a useful and comprehensive resource to better understand how to focus your guideline scope. For further reading, please refer to the resources below.

Additional reading materials:

• GIN McMaster Checklist – Priority setting

• NHMRC – Scoping the guideline

Establish an appropriate multidisciplinary group with clearly stated role(s) in the guideline development

The composition of the multidisciplinary group will depend on several factors, such as the guideline topic and scope, and may vary across guideline organisations. Below, we listed useful reading and resources to guide you when appointing your guideline panel:

• GIN McMaster Checklist – Guideline Group Membership

• Developing NICE guidelines: the manual – Decision-making committees (Forming the committee)

• NHMRC – Guideline development group

• Example: WHO Guideline on Low Back Pain – Contributors to the Guideline

Collect and manage conflicts of interest

Each guideline organisation has its own conflict of interest (COI) policies and management approaches, reflecting different organisational priorities and governance structures. The Guideline International Network (GIN) has published core principles for disclosure and management of COI in guidelines in this useful paper: Guidelines International Network: Principles for Disclosure of Interests and Management of Conflicts in Guidelines | Annals of Internal Medicine.

Other references and examples of how reputable guideline bodies approach COI declaration and management are listed below:

• GIN McMaster Checklist – Conflict of Interest Considerations 

• NICE – Declaring and managing interests: advisory committees

• NHMRC – Identifying and managing conflicts of interest

• WHO Handbook for guideline development – “Declaration and management of interests”

• Example: WHO guidelines declaration of interest form

Use evidence to guide recommendations, underpinned by a pre-determined evidence-to-decision framework

The “GRADE Handbook – Going from evidence to recommendations” is one of the most comprehensive and commonly used resource guiding how to formulate recommendations from evidence and serves as an excellent starting point.

Other useful readings are listed below, including approaches to the evidence-to-decision/recommendation (EtD/R) step used by reputable guideline bodies:

• GIN McMaster Checklist – Summarising Evidence and Developing Recommendations

• Developing NICE guidelines: the manual – Interpreting the evidence and writing the guideline

• NHMRC – Evidence to decision and making recommendations

• WHO Handbook for guideline development – “Evidence assessment” and “Developing recommendations” 

If you are new to GRADE, the GRADEpro Platform can help supporting the EtR process and is helpful in standardising your approach.

ACE regularly publishes EtRs alongside our guidelines; here’s an example from the osteoporosis ACG. Our EtR approach has been presented during the 2025 AVBC conference, you can watch the video here.

Use systematic literature review methods for synthesising evidence

The “Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions” offers comprehensive and professional guidance to systematically synthesise evidence and serves as an essential reference for this standard .

 Below, other useful readings are listed, including evidence synthesis methods used by reputable guideline bodies:

• GIN McMaster Checklist – Deciding what Evidence to Include and Searching for Evidence

• Developing NICE guidelines: the manual – Identifying the evidence: literature searching and evidence submission

• NHMRC – Synthesising evidence

• GRADE Handbook – Developing questions about interventions

• WHO Handbook for guideline development – “Evidence retrieval and synthesis”

Several tools exist to assess risk of bias. Here are some commonly used ones:

• For systematic reviews and meta-analyses: CASP Critical Appraisal Checklists

• For randomised controlled trials: Cochrane Risk of Bias (RoB 2) tool

• For observational studies: ROBINS-I V2 tool

• For observational studies: Newcastle-Ottawa Scale

• Sample PRISMA templates

Include implementability features

Successful guidelines go beyond providing evidence-based recommendations—they are designed to be easily implemented in practice. While approaches vary across organisations, the resources below describe how to integrate implementability features throughout the development process, from planning to publication.

• NICE - Wording the recommendations

• NHMRC - Implementability

• WHO Handbook for guideline development - “Writing recommendations”

• Guideline implementation planning checklist

Use a consensus methodology

Each guideline organisation employs its own approach to achieve consensus. Below, we listed useful readings to better understand the various methods, including the consensus approaches applied by reputable guideline bodies:

• Developing NICE guidelines: the manual - Making group decisions and reaching consensus

• How to develop and evaluate consensus documents: Methods and checklists (Formal consensus development methods)

• The RAND/UCLA Appropriateness Method User's Manual

• WHO Handbook for guideline development – “Decision-making in the guideline development group”

 If you decide to apply the RAND/UCLA consensus methodology, ACE has developed an in-house template for collating ratings and automatically calculate agreement – click here .

Seek external review before publication

Various stakeholders can be engaged for external review processes, depending on the guideline scope, audience and organisational requirements. The resources below provide guidance on how to effectively seek and manage external feedback before publication, including approaches used by reputable guideline bodies:

• Developing NICE guidelines: the manual - The validation process for draft guidelines, and dealing with stakeholder comments

• NHMRC – Independent review

• WHO Handbook for guideline development  – “The external review group” and “Peer review”

• Example: WHO Guideline on Low Back Pain – Contributors to the Guideline

Plan for updating the guideline

The resources below provide guidance on key considerations for determining when and how to update your guideline.

• GIN McMaster Checklist - Updating

• Developing NICE guidelines: the manual - Updating guideline recommendations

• NHMRC - Updating

• WHO Handbook for guideline development – “Updating guidelines”

• McMaster University Program in Evidence-Based Care – “Assessment and Review Protocol”