Abstract

Clinical practice guidelines are statements that include recommendations intended to optimize patient care based on a systematic review of the evidence assessing the benefits and harm of alternative care options. Guideline developers should use an explicit, judicious, and transparent methodology to make trustworthy guidelines. Although there are a variety of frameworks that can help translate enormous medical knowledge into recommendations, the most widely adopted tool for grading the quality of evidence and making recommendations is GRADE (Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development and Evaluations). This article is the first translation of a series published in the BMJ with regard to the GRADE Approach for Evidence Based Clinical Practice Guideline Development to provide informative knowledge for moving from evidence to recommendations to Korean guideline developers.