Evaluation of current clinical guidelines for the management of sexually transmissible enteric infections using the AGREE II toolkit
Bibliographic record
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Clinical guidelines for sexually transmissible enteric infections can provide a framework for testing, management, antimicrobial stewardship and public health control. This review aimed to evaluate the currently available clinical guidelines and to highlight any areas for improvement. METHOD: A comprehensive online search for clinical guidelines was performed and reported using Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis guidelines, followed by evaluation using the Appraisal of Guidelines for Research and Evaluation II (AGREE II) tool by three independent reviewers. An AGREE II domain score of >60% is the threshold for sufficient quality, and each guideline was rated high, average or low based on the domain percentages (five domains scoring >60%=high, 3-4 domains scoring >60%=average and ≤2 domains scoring>60%=low). Two authors developed a bespoke quality framework for sexually transmissible enteric infection guidelines and this was used to evaluate each guideline. RESULTS: Six clinical guidelines were identified from the UK (British Association for Sexual Health and HIV (UK-BASHH)), USA (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (USA-CDC)), Europe (International Union against Sexually Transmitted Infections (Europe-IUSTI)), Canada-government, Brazil-government and Australia (Australasia Society for HIV, Viral Hepatitis, and Sexual Health Medicine (Australia-ASHM)). The overall AGREE II score was 56% (IQR 43-67) (domain 1 (scope and purpose) 67% (IQR=42-67), domain 2 (stakeholder involvement) 46% (IQR 34-62), domain 3 (rigour of development) 42% (IQR 22-49), domain 4 (clarity of presentation) 80% (IQR 57-89), domain 5 (applicability) 23% (IQR 11-30) and domain 6 (editorial independence) 67% (IQR 56-84)). The median global scores (out of 7) and rating (low, medium and high) were UK-BASHH (5/7, high), USA-CDC (5/7, average), Europe-IUSTI (4/7, average), Canada government (4/7, low), Brazil government (3/7, low) and Australia-ASHM (1/7, low). All six guidelines recommended testing using molecular platforms: UK-BASHH, USA-CDC and Europe-IUSTI recommended offering sexual health interventions and STI testing; the UK-BASHH and Australia-ASHM did not recommend empirical antimicrobials, and the Europe-IUSTI and Brazil government guidelines made specific antimicrobial recommendations, including macrolides, quinolones and cephalosporins. CONCLUSION: Future clinical guidelines for sexually transmissible enteric infections require consistency and to improve their applicability, rigour of development, stakeholder involvement and recommendations for sexual health interventions, sexually transmitted infection testing, partner notification, handwashing and food handlers' advice and antimicrobial treatment.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.228 | 0.519 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.008 | 0.013 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.022 | 0.020 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.008 | 0.007 |
| Open science | 0.007 | 0.008 |
| Research integrity | 0.003 | 0.004 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.006 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; the direct Gemma label and the distilled Codex classifier agree on what is shown here.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".