CLINICAL practice guidelines are vulnerable to bias, with only 15% of NHMRC guidelines from Australia’s most prolific guideline developers including a declaration of conflicts of interest, new research has found.
Although a conflict of interest (COI) statement has long been required from authors of research papers, it is often lacking for developers of clinical practice guidelines, despite the influence of guidelines on clinical care.
The research, in the latest issue of the MJA, looked at more than 200 clinical guidelines that were listed on the NHMRC website. Its authors concluded that the NHMRC needed to “urgently promote a more ethically sound development process for guidelines”.
“Our review of the country’s most prolific guideline developers shows that only 15% of guidelines have COI statements”, they said.
“This raises questions about whether medical bodies are affected by unrecognised, and thus unaddressed, extraneous interests, and may erode the trust the community has in the profession to speak authoritatively about health problems.”
MJA InSight, 17 October 2011
