Table 1.

Study design

Clinical topic	Guideline	User type, no.*
		Clinicians†n = 28	Researchers and developers‡n = 38	Policy-makers§n = 17
Cancer	A	15	38	17
	B
	C
	D
Cardiovascular	E	7		–
	F
	G
	H
Critical care	I	6		–
	J

^*Participants of each user type were randomly assigned to guidelines as indicated by clinical topic.

^†The areas of expertise of clinicians were matched to clinical topic.

^‡Researchers and developers were randomly assigned to clinical topics.

^§Policy-makers were allocated only to the clinical topic of cancer.