Hepatitis C

Development of the guideline

Introduction

SIGN is a collaborative network of clinicians, other healthcare professionals and patient organisations and is part of NHS Quality Improvement Scotland. SIGN guidelines are developed by multidisciplinary groups of practising clinicians using a standard methodology based on a systematic review of the evidence. Further details about SIGN and the guideline development methodology are contained in “SIGN 50: A Guideline Developer’s Handbook”, available at www.sign.ac.uk.

The guideline development group

The membership of the guideline development group was confirmed following consultation with the member organisations of SIGN. All members of the guideline development group made declarations of interest and further details of these are available on request from the SIGN Executive. Guideline development and literature review expertise, support and facilitation were provided by the SIGN Executive.

Systematic literature review

The evidence base for this guideline was synthesised in accordance with SIGN methodology. A systematic literature review was carried out using an explicit search strategy devised by the SIGN Information Officer in collaboration with members of the guideline development group. Literature searches were initially conducted in Medline, Embase, Cinahl and the Cochrane Library, using the year range 2000-2005. Key websites on the Internet were also used, such as the National Guidelines Clearinghouse. The literature search was updated with new material during the course of the guideline development process, and was supplemented by reference lists of relevant papers and group members’ own files. The Medline version of the main strategies can be found on the SIGN website.

Consultation and peer review

National open meeting

A national open meeting is the main consultative phase of SIGN guideline development, at which the guideline development group presents its draft recommendations for the first time. The national open meeting for this guideline was held on 3 November 2005 and was attended by 215 representatives of all the key specialties relevant to the guideline. The draft guideline was also available on the SIGN website for a limited period at this stage to allow those unable to attend the meeting to contribute to the development of the guideline.

Specialist review

This guideline was also reviewed in draft form by the following independent expert referees, who were asked to comment primarily on the comprehensiveness and accuracy of interpretation of the evidence base supporting the recommendations in the guideline. SIGN is very grateful to all of these experts for their contribution to the guideline.

Sign editorial group

As a final quality control check, the guideline is reviewed by an editorial group comprising the relevant specialty representatives on SIGN Council to ensure that the specialist reviewers’ comments have been addressed adequately and that any risk of bias in the guideline development process as a whole has been minimised. The editorial group for this guideline was as follows:

Acknowledgments

SIGN is grateful to the following former members of the guideline development group and others who have contributed to the development of this guideline:

• The sign guidelines
  • About the guideline
    • Background to HCV
    • Development of the guideline
    • Definitions
    • Abbreviations
    • Evidence levels and recommendation gradings
    • References
    • Implementation, resource implications and audit
  • Testing & Diagnosis
  • Referral
  • Management
  • Treatment
• Research & resources
• Action Plan
• Patients and carers
• Useful contacts
• Information leaflets