A pilot living clinical practice guidelines approach was feasible and acceptable to guideline panel members

Objectives: Clinical practice guidelines (CPGs) help to translate best available evidence into clinical practice but can be challenging to keep current due to their resource intensive nature. A “living” process that is used to continually update CPGs may therefore be of value. Study Design and Setting: This pilot study assesses the development of a living CPG protocol based on the CanPainSCI CPG. Two “living CPG” update searches were performed; resource costs and acceptability were assessed by a research team across Australia and Canada Results: Two updates were completed over 3 years. Literature searches and data extraction were completed by trainees on 119 and 58 papers. Eight papers were included and reviewed by 14 expert panel members. Resource usage included a total 43 hours of screening by trainees at $2,356 (USD), 24 hours of expert panel review at $3,141 (USD) and 30 hours of project management at $3,241 (USD). Reviewers were generally satisfied with the process. All reviewers agreed that incorporating a living guidelines approach would be useful. Conclusion: This paper outlines the process of maintaining a CPG through a living guideline process and provides resource costs and acceptability data which may aid stakeholders in the development of future CPGs.