Critical appraisal of the Colombian clinical practice guide for the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of suicidal ideation and/or behaviour (adoption)

Abstract

Introduction: Suicide is a complex, global public health problem. The Colombian clinical practice guideline provides relevant input for its prevention, diagnosis and treatment. The objective was to evaluate the methodological quality, credibility and applicability of the Colombian clinical practice guideline for suicidal behaviour.

Methods: An academic group of 12 evaluators was established to assess the guide and its recommendations in a standardised way, using the AGREE-II and AGREE-REX instruments. The evaluations were given in the range of 0.0-1.0 with 0.7 as a cut-off point for appropriate quality.

Results: The global assessment of the AGREE-II was greater than 0.7 in the dimensions: "scope and objective" (0.86), "clarity of presentation" (0.89), "applicability" (0.73) and "editorial independence" (0.89). The lowest scores were for "participation of those involved" (0.67) and "rigour in preparation" (0.69). With the AGREE-REX, the results in all dimensions were below 0.70, which indicates lower quality and suitability for use.

Conclusions: The adoption process of the Colombian guideline for suicidal behaviour was a rigorous methodological process, while the practice recommendations were valued as of low applicability due to low support in local evidence. It is necessary to strengthen the generation and synthesis of evidence at the national level to give greater support and applicability to the practice recommendations.

Keywords: Barreras de acceso a los servicios de salud; Barriers in access to health services health plan implementation; Evaluación de la tecnología médica; Guías de práctica clínica como asunto; Medical technology assessment; Peer review; Practice guidelines as topic; Revisión por pares; Suicide; Suicidio.