[AGREE II: assessing the quality of practice guidelines].

Clinical practice guidelines (CPG) are systematically developed statements to assist practitioner and patient decisions about appropriate health care for specific clinical circumstances. Rigorous methodologies in the CPG development process are crucial for their successful implementation, but the quality of guidelines can be extremely variable and sometimes it is very low. The Appraisal of Guidelines for Research & Evaluation (AGREE) instrument was published in 2001 to address the issue of variability in guideline quality. The AGREE Next Step Consortium refined the instrument with the publication of the new AGREE II, including a new User's Manual. GIMBE Foundation supported the Italian translation of AGREE II.