Quality evaluation of metabolic and bariatric surgical guidelines

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the quality of surgical guidelines on bariatric/metabolic surgery. METHODS: Four independent reviewers used the AGREE II (The Appraisal of Guidelines for Research and Evaluation II) tool to assess the methodological quality of the included guidelines and conducted a comparative analysis of the main recommendations for surgical methods of these guidelines. RESULTS: Nine surgical guidelines were included in this study. Five articles with AGREE II scores over 60% are worthy of clinical recommendation. The field of rigor of development was relatively low, with an average score of 50.82%. Among 15 key recommendations and the corresponding best evidence in the guidelines, only 4 key recommendations were grade A recommendations. CONCLUSIONS: The quality of metabolic and bariatric guidelines is uneven, and there is much room for improvement.