GRADE

The SOGC has adopted the GRADE (Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development, and Evaluation) methodology to evaluate the recommendations in each Clinical Practice Guideline. The GRADE approach is a method of grading the quality of evidence and the strength of recommendations in guidelines. This approach is being used by many international organizations to produce rigorous and transparent clinical practice guidelines and other health care recommendations.

GRADE was developed by the GRADE Working Group, which is a collaboration of methodologists, guideline developers, clinicians, and other interested members, with the aim of developing and implementing a common, transparent and sensible approach to grading the quality of evidence and strength of recommendations in health care.

To help our members to apply this new approach, we have compiled links to GRADE resources, and to the documents from the SOGC's workshops and webinars on GRADE below.

Documents from the SOGC's webinars on GRADE

Webinar 1: "Developing guidelines: What's the difference in process if you use GRADE?"

Slides | PDF

Webinar 2: "How to Grade"

Play the recording

Webinar 3: "Risk of Bias Assessment"

Play the recording

"GRADE guidelines" articles

GRADE guidelines: 1. Introduction—GRADE evidence profiles and summary of findings tables

http://www.jclinepi.com/article/S0895-4356(10)00330-6/abstract

GRADE guidelines: 2. Framing the question and deciding on important outcomes

http://www.jclinepi.com/article/S0895-4356(10)00331-8/fulltext

GRADE guidelines: 3. Rating the quality of evidence

http://www.jclinepi.com/article/S0895-4356(10)00332-X/fulltext

GRADE guidelines: 4. Rating the quality of evidence—study limitations (risk of bias)

http://www.jclinepi.com/article/S0895-4356(10)00413-0/abstract

GRADE guidelines: 5. Rating the quality of evidence—publication bias

http://www.jclinepi.com/article/S0895-4356(11)00181-8/abstract

GRADE guidelines 6. Rating the quality of evidence—imprecision

http://www.jclinepi.com/article/S0895-4356(11)00206-X/abstract

GRADE guidelines: 7. Rating the quality of evidence—inconsistency

http://www.jclinepi.com/article/S0895-4356(11)00182-X/abstract

GRADE guidelines: 8. Rating the quality of evidence—indirectness

http://www.jclinepi.com/article/S0895-4356(11)00183-1/fulltext

GRADE guidelines: 9. Rating up the quality of evidence

http://www.jclinepi.com/article/S0895-4356(11)00184-3/fulltext

GRADE guidelines: 10. Considering resource use and rating the quality of economic evidence

http://www.jclinepi.com/article/S0895-4356(12)00134-5/abstract

GRADE guidelines: 11. Making an overall rating of confidence in effect estimates for a single outcome and for all outcomes

http://www.jclinepi.com/article/S0895-4356(12)00025-X/fulltext

GRADE guidelines: 12. Preparing Summary of Findings tables—binary outcomes

http://www.jclinepi.com/article/S0895-4356(12)00032-7/fulltext

GRADE guidelines: 13. Preparing Summary of Findings tables and evidence profiles—continuous outcomes

http://www.jclinepi.com/article/S0895-4356(12)00240-5/fulltext

GRADE guidelines: 14. Going from evidence to recommendations: the significance and presentation of recommendations

http://www.jclinepi.com/article/S0895-4356(12)00138-2/abstract

GRADE guidelines: 15. Going from evidence to recommendation—determinants of a recommendation's direction and strength

http://www.jclinepi.com/article/S0895-4356(13)00054-1/fulltext

GRADE Online Learning Modules

https://cebgrade.mcmaster.ca/