Methods for living guidelines: paper 6: insights from Australian Living Evidence Collaboration's (ALEC) use of existing systematic reviews in living guideline development

Clinical practice guidelines should be based on the best available evidence, and living guidelines should stay up to date as new studies are published. Undertaking a review of all the studies related to a guideline topic is a lot of work. Using an existing review of the literature, that has already been published, can help reduce this workload. We conducted interviews with experienced guideline developers to see how they use existing evidence reviews to make their living guidelines. Based on these interviews, we suggest how to best use an existing review to create a living guideline. This includes locating an appropriate review with a relevant scope, checking for clear reporting, and if the right studies were included. If a review does not meet these appropriate criteria, it is unlikely to be of value to form a living guideline. Ideally the review should also be recent, have considered the quality of the included studies, and clearly present the results of each study it included. If this has not been done, guideline developers may need to undertake additional work to use the review.