Page 55 - Shared Guideline Development Experiences in Fertility Care

to and facilitators of the approach, and suggestions for improvement [21]. Two researchers (EB and MH) studied the interviews and the open question responses independently. ey identi ed and coded the parts of the interviewees’ responses that were relevant to the study objectives. ey then discussed key issues and discrepancies between their results. e key issues were structured with a view to the study objectives. e questionnaire was based on the interviews, so we only present the results of the questionnaire for each study objective, but no information found under the heading ‘Organization.’
Results 3
Participants
Five (four MoG and one MuG) groups were installed in May 2008. None of the members of the groups declared signi cant COIs, and all of them were o cially mandated by their societies. One of the physicians involved in the MuG group dropped out for private reasons two months later. e MuG chairperson, a physician, concurrently ful lled this role. Overall, 32 participants were involved in the ve groups (Table 1). Four participants ful lled multiple roles: the project coordinator was a member of the steering committee and all ve guideline groups; the chairperson of the MoG group for general infertility was a member of the steering committee; one project leader was a member of the steering committee and chairperson of the MuG group; and one member of the MuG group was a member of the steering committee (Table 1). All participants received the evaluation questionnaire (one patient representative was unavailable). e response rate was 79% (n = 27). Table 2 summarizes the background characteristics of the respondents. Of the 59% who were experienced in guideline development, 63% were also experienced in MuG development.
Guideline development
e project was carried out as planned, except for minor modi cations needed to improve the consistency between the concepts of the guidelines. Face-to-face meetings and additional conferences calls were necessary to discuss discrepancies between recommendations concerning the cut-o points for treating infertility. ese recommendations were issued by guidelines for male infertility and unexplained fertility. e cut-o points were eventually based on the existing
Patient-centred network approach
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