title: Appraisal of clinical practice guidelines on community-acquired pneumonia in children with AGREE II instrument.
abstract: Community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) remains a major cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide among children. The growing number of guidelines have been accompanied with a growing concern about variance and conflicts among guideline recommendations. There is a need to critically appraise clinical practice guidelines (CPGs) in order to ensure safe and effective practices.
  
  
  
  A literature search was systematically conducted in English and Chinese major academic databases (from January 2000 to March 2015). CPGs related to CAP in children were evaluated by four independent assessors, according to AGREE II instruments. Standardized domain scores were calculated for each guideline. Inter-rater reliability was assessed by intraclass correlation coefficient. The software used for analysis was SPSS 17.0.
  
  
  
  A total of 10 guidelines met the inclusion criteria and were appraised. Scope and purpose (69.03 %) and clarity of presentation (83.33 %) achieved relative high scores, while the scores of the other four domains were low: stakeholder involvement (42.78 %), rigour of development (44.95 %), applicability (37.60 %), and editorial independence (23.74 %). 3 guidelines were strongly recommended as a result of the overall scores were greater than 60 %.
  
  
  
  The qualities of CPGs for CAP in children were generally acceptable with several flaws. Stakeholder involvement, rigour of development, applicability and editorial independence should be considered and well described in the future development of CPGs.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pharmacy, Beijing Children's Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing, 100045, China.|School of Pharmaceutical Science, Peking University, Beijing, 100191, China.
authors.forename: Zhenwei
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Xie
authors.affiliation: Department of Pharmacy, Beijing Children's Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing, 100045, China.
authors.forename: Xiaoling
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Pediatric Respiratory Infection Diseases, Beijing Pediatric Research Institute, Beijing Children's Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing, 100045, China.
authors.forename: Lin
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Sun
authors.affiliation: Department of Respiratory, Beijing Children's Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing, 100045, China.
authors.forename: Jun
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Department of Respiratory, Beijing Children's Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing, 100045, China.
authors.forename: Yan
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Guo
authors.affiliation: Department of Respiratory, Beijing Children's Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing, 100045, China.
authors.forename: Baoping
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.affiliation: Department of Pharmacy, Beijing Children's Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing, 100045, China. libozhao2011@163.com.
authors.forename: Libo
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Zhao
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Pediatric Respiratory Infection Diseases, Beijing Pediatric Research Institute, Beijing Children's Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing, 100045, China. shenad16@hotmail.com.
authors.forename: Adong
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Shen
mesh_terms: D002648:Child; D017714:Community-Acquired Infections / Q000628:therapy*; D035081:Editorial Policies; D019317:Evidence-Based Medicine; D006801:Humans; D017410:Practice Guidelines as Topic / Q000592:standards*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results
keywords: AGREE II; Children; Clinical practice guidelines; Community-acquired pneumonia; Quality assessment