Quality standards in respiratory real-life effectiveness research: the REal Life EVidence AssessmeNt Tool (RELEVANT): report from the Respiratory Effectiveness Group—European Academy of Allergy and Clinical Immunology Task Force

INTRODUCTION: A Task Force was commissioned jointly by the European Academy of Allergy and Clinical Immunology (EAACI) and the Respiratory Effectiveness Group (REG) to develop a quality assessment tool for real-life observational research to identify high-quality real-life asthma studies that could be considered within future guideline development. METHODS: The resulting REal Life EVidence AssessmeNt Tool (RELEVANT) was achieved through an extensive analysis of existing initiatives in this area. The first version was piloted among 9 raters across 6 articles; the revised, interim, version underwent extensive testing by 22 reviewers from the EAACI membership and REG collaborator group, leading to further revisions and tool finalisation. RELEVANT was validated through an analysis of real-life effectiveness studies identified via systematic review of Medline and Embase databases and relating to topics for which real-life studies may offer valuable evidence complementary to that from randomised controlled trials. The topics were selected through a vote among Task Force members and related to the influence of adherence, smoking, inhaler device and particle size on asthma treatment effectiveness. RESULTS: Although highlighting a general lack of high-quality real-life effectiveness observational research on these clinically important topics, the analysis provided insights into how identified observational studies might inform asthma guidelines developers and clinicians. Overall, RELEVANT appeared reliable and easy to use by expert reviewers. CONCLUSIONS: Using such quality appraisal tools is mandatory to assess whether specific observational real-life effectiveness studies can be used to inform guideline development and/or decision-making in clinical practice. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s13601-019-0255-x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.