Table 1

Criteria used to evaluate recommendations

Criteria	Description
Priority	The importance of what the specific intervention addresses, urgency of the problem.
Desired effects	The extent of the desired effects of the intervention.
Undesired effects	The extent of the undesired effects of the intervention.
Desirable effects outweigh undesirable effects	Whether comparing the desired effects with the undesirable effects favours the intervention.
Certainty of evidence on effects	The strength of the evidence and the confidence that the available evidence is adequate.
Patient values and preferences	The extent to which practitioners believe the intervention or recommendation would meet patients’ preferences for how they might be affected.
Resources required	Resources (money, time, human resources, etc) needed to implement the intervention.
Certainty of evidence on resources required	Quality of the available evidence about the resources needed for the intervention, the strength of the evidence and the confidence that it is adequate.
Cost-effectiveness	The economic impact of an intervention on the health system, government or society.
Equity	Whether an intervention reduces inequalities in health if it reduces differences in effectiveness for disadvantaged populations.
Acceptability	Level of acceptability by professionals due to, eg, ethical principles, distribution of effects and costs.
Feasibility	Whether during day-to-day clinical practice the intervention can be implemented with available resources, infrastructure and training or with a minimal increase in resources.
Measurability	Whether there is an indicator that measures the use of the intervention and whether it can be easily used in practice, without additional resources or with minimal additional resources.