. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2021 Mar 9.

Published in final edited form as: Rev Endocr Metab Disord. 2020 Sep 10;21(4):667–678. doi: 10.1007/s11154-020-09588-z

Table 2.

Grading of Evidence and Recommendations

Grading the evidence	Grading the recommendations

• Very low quality (VLQ): expert opinion supported by one or few small uncontrolled studies	• Discretionary recommendation (DR): based on VLQ or LQ evidence
• Low quality (LQ): supported by large series of small uncontrolled studies	• Strong recommendation (SR): based on MQ or HQ evidence
• Moderate quality (MQ): supported by one or few large uncontrolled studies or meta-analyses
• High quality (HQ): supported by controlled studies or large series of large uncontrolled studies with sufficiently long follow-up

Adapted with permission from Melmed et al. [7]