Table 1.

Attributes of osteoarthritis treatment guidelines published within the past 5 years

		Year
		literature
Guideline	Year	search
[Reference no.]	published	completed	Guideline development attributes	End users
Canadian Consensus	2000	Not stated	Rheumatologists; general and family practitioners	Primary-care physicians,
Conference [11]			Grading of evidence	rheumatologists
			Formal consensus methods for recommendations
			External review
North of England [12,13]	1998	Not stated	Multidisciplinary committee	Primary-care physicians
		(Does state that	Meta-analyses of evidence
		recommendations	Grading of evidence
		cease to apply	Informal consensus for recommendations
		December 1999)	Recommendation strength grading
			External review
Algorithms for the	1997	Not stated	Multidisciplinary committee	Primary-care physicians
Diagnosis and Management			Grading of evidence
of Musculoskeletal			Formal and informal consensus methods for
Complaints (ADMMC)			recommendations
[14,15,16,33]			Formal approval process by stakeholders
ICSI[17,18]	1999 (2000)	Not stated	Multidisciplinary committee	Physicians, nurses, allied
			Grading of evidence	health professionals,
			Assume informal consensus for recommendations	health policy makers
			External review	health care researchers
EULAR [6]	2000	December 1998	Rheumatologists, orthopaedic surgeons, and	Not stated
			guideline methodologists
			Meta-analyses of evidence
			Grading of evidence
			Delphi consensus method
			Recommendation strength grading
			Internal review
ACR[4,5]	2000	Not stated	Rheumatologists	Not stated
			Informal grading of evidence
			Informal consensus for recommendations
			External review

ACR = American College of Rheumatology; EULAR = European League Against Rheumatism; ICSI = Institute for Clinical Systems Improvement.