International Diabetes Federation document concerning postmeal glycemic control: assessment of quality of clinical practice guidelines using AGREE instrument.

18 IntroductIon Clinical practice guidelines (CPG) are becoming one of the basic educational and informational tools for physicians. Scientific associations and other organizations, whether lo­ cal, national or inter national, develop such docu­ ments, expecting their members and other users of the guidelines to act according to their recom­ mendations. Compliance with CPG recommenda­ tions is sometimes used as an index of health care quality, and the number of CPG is increasing. It is not infrequent that CPG addressing the same clin­ ical situations are issued independently by differ­ ent organizations. For example, physicians inter­ ested in treatment of venous thromboembolism may take advantage of current documents issued by American College of Chest Physicians1, Amer­ ican College of Physicians/American Academy of Family Physicians2, American Society of Clin­ ical Oncology3, Institute for Clinical Systems Im­ provement4, International Union of Angiology in cooperation with other inter national scientif­ ic associations5, National Comprehensive Cancer Network6 and National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence7. Recommendations includ­ ed in individual CPG are frequently similar, but sometimes differ. There are numerous reasons for which various scientific associations or orga­ nizations develop independent documents deal­ ing with similar clinical situations, starting from local conditions, like availability of drugs, com­ mon prevention methods, etc, through the needs of specific groups and organizations, to differenc­ es of opinions. It is important for users, i.e. physicians, nurses, physiotherapists, patients and other inter ested parties, to have an opportunity to recognize and select CPG with the best odds of benefiting pa­ tients to whom CPG are applied. However, such choice is difficult, because it is not easy to assess which guidelines are “the best”. Many publica­ tions do not even allow the reader to be precise­ ly aware to whom they are directed to, what ev­ idence serve as the basis for recommendations or what was the association between the authors orIGInAL ArtIcLE