AGREE II

The Agency, in cooperation with a team of experts, has prepared a translation of the   AGREE II (Appraisal of Guidelines for Research and Evaluation ) guideline quality assessment tool into Polish. In the course of the works, uniform vocabulary concerning the methodology of creating guidelines has also been developed.

AGREE II tool is a set of quality indicators developed by an international team of authors (Appraisal of Guidelines for Research and Evaluation [AGREE] Collaboration) which should be met by high-quality guidelines. The document enables a multidimensional quality assessment of the guidelines, including:

• methodology for developing guidelines;
• components of the final recommendations;
• manner in which recommendations are presented;
• consideration of factors that may affect their application in clinical practice.

Currently, AGREE II is widely recognised as the standard for assessing the quality of recommendations. In many countries it constitutes a basis for assessing the quality of the developed guidelines, and its application is recommended by a number of healthcare organisations, including the WHO, Guidelines International Network, the British NICE and the German AWMF.

From the Agency’s perspective, verifying conformity with AGREE II is a key element in the process of issuing opinions on the guidelines, which allows to ensure the highest quality of the recommendations published by the Minister of Health.

The document may be helpful to the authors of guidelines:

• in developing methodically correct recommendations;
• in choosing information and the way to present it.

For end users, it facilitates the assessment and selection of the highest quality recommendations.