CPG for Eating Disorders

3. MethodologyThe methodology employed is described in the MSC’s CPG development manual 1 . The stepsfollowed have been:– Creation of the CPG working group comprised of a clinical team, a technical team and twocoordinators (clinical and technical). The clinical team consists of a group of health careprofessionals (psychology, psychiatry, nursing and nutrition and dietetics specialists)involved in the study and treatment of eating disorders and an attorney, who are carryingout their activity in Catalonia and are linked to the Master Plan of Mental Health andAddictions of the Catalan Department of Health, and representatives of Spanish scientificsocieties, associations or federations who are involved in the care of eating disorders. Thetechnical team is composed of CAHTA members who have a wealth of experience andknowledge on the development of evidence-based CPGs and on critical assessment, andresearch support staff. The working group has relied on the participation of a group ofcollaborating experts from all over Spain selected by the clinical coordinator for hisexpertise in the matter, as well as another group of CAHTA members who havecollaborated in some of the following activities: defining the scope, search, documentalmanagement, initial review of literature and internal review. Representatives of thesocieties, associations or federations involved in this project and expert collaborators havetaken part in defining the scope and objectives of the CPG, in the formulation of keyclinical questions and in the review of the guide’s rough draft. The participants’declaration of conflict of interests can be found in the section “Authors andCollaborations”.– Formulation of key clinical questions in the following format: patient / intervention/ comparison / outcome or result (PICO).– The search for scientific evidence was structured in different stages:1) Generic databases, meta-search engines and organizations that compile guidelines(National Guidelines Clearinghouse, National Electronic Library for Health,Tripdatabase, The Cochrane Library, Pubmed/Medline and BMJ Clinical Evidence)were consulted between 2003 and March 2007.2) To complete the search, a manual search was performed for protocols, recommendations,narrative reviews, therapeutic orientations and guides on eating disorders elaborated byorganisations pertaining to the health care administration, scientific societies, hospitalsand other organizations of our setting. Some of these documents have inspired andserved as a model for certain sections of this guide (see Annex 6.1.). This annex alsolists documents created outside of Spain that have been excluded from the selectionprocess due to low quality. However, some have been considered for the developmentof certain aspects of this CPG.CLINICAL PRACTICE GUIDELINE FOR EATING DISORDERS43