A critical appraisal and systematic review of clinical practice guidelines on hormone replacement therapy for menopause: assessment using the Appraisal of Guidelines for Research and Evaluation (AGREE II) Instrument

Review question / Objective: To assess the quality of clinical practice guidelines (CPC) on hormone replacement therapy for menopause using the AGREE II instrument and to provide a summary of recommendations. Information sources: Literature searches using MEDLINE, Embase, Scopus, Geneva Foundation for Medical Education and Research from inception to date will be searched. The search terms include guidelines / guidance / recommendation and hormone replacement therapy related keywords and MeSH terms. National and international organizations websites will be searched individually. Additional searches on the references of the primary included items may help identify any guidelines missed on the primary searches. In the case of more than one published guideline from the same national or international association, only the latest version of the guidelines will be included and evaluated. Any disagreements on inclusion criteria will be addressed through discussion and consensus meeting within the research team. Guidelines published in languages other than English will be considered on an individual basis. Guidelines must be publicly available on a website or in a peer-reviewed publication.