About EAN Guidelines for Neurologists
An important aim of the EAN is to establish European standards of diagnosis, treatment and care within the various subfields of neurology. Europe with its very heterogeneous neurology needs to establish not only guidelines for the diagnosis and the treatment of neurological disorders, but also for the organisation of certain aspects of neurology.The guidelines of the EAN are produced by so-called task forces. A task force is a group of people with a chairperson and a written mandate, which usually runs for one to two years. The task forces are normally appointed by the Scientific Committee taking into consideration qualifications as well as geographical spread. A Task Force normally consists of a chairperson and at least six but not usually more than 12 members in order to facilitate the working process and the writing of the final guideline paper.
Building a better path for EAN Guidelines
The EAN Guideline Production Group (GPG) aims to:
- Promote the development of high-quality, high-impact guidelines for the most important neurological diseases;
- Increase in-house intellectual capital and building capabilities on supporting guideline development; and
- Increase guideline production efficiency
In line with this, EAN employs a top-down process* (i.e., the GPG determines the topics, which guidelines shall be written on ) when selecting guideline projects to support, to ensure that resources and attention are devoted to those areas in which clinical practice guidelines will provide the greatest benefit to patients, clinicians, and policy makers.
A set of criteria to be applied for prioritizing topics for future EAN guidelines was therefore defined, as well as the procedure for their implementation. For this purpose, the EAN GPG invited relevant stakeholders including professionals who have experience and expertise in the development, assessment and implementation of CPGs together with health policy makers, patient representatives and national organisations to take part in a Delphi consensus project.
*In order to accommodate any urgent and important topics that may emerge in between, EAN still retains its bottom-up process, in which EAN members and Scientific Panels may submit proposals via email at any time.
EAN Guideline Production Process
Every 2 years, EAN shall open a Call for Guideline Topic Proposals to invite EAN Scientific & Coordinating Panel Members, EAN Individual Members, National Societies, Partner Societies, and Patient Representatives to submit guideline topics of interest. The EAN Guideline Production Group, Scientific Committee, and Board then review and select topics that are the most clinically relevant based on the EAN prioritization criteria.
The Call for Guideline Topic Proposals 2024 for the Priority Guideline Topic List 2025-2027 will open on September 30th - October 27th, 2024.
Following the priority criteria developed through the above-mentioned consensus, the EAN Guideline Production Group, Scientific Committee, and Board then evaluate all the topic proposals. The top-ranking 30 topics are then considered as Priority Topics, which have then a validity of 2 years.
The 7 Criteria for ranking the priority of EAN guidelines:
- The health burden of the condition in the proposed topic
- Potential for changing an existing practice
- Impact on health outcomes (estimated positive impact of the guideline on morbidity, disability scores, mortality)
- Absence of a guideline
- Pre-existing guidelines of low quality or outdated guidelines (The guideline is more than 5 years old/was not revised within the last 5 years or there is recent evidence that could change current clinical practice).
- Practice variation (non-harmonized best-practices among the European countries)
- Uncertainty or controversy about best practice (due to new evidence or lack of evidence)
For 2022-2024, the 30 topics have already been ranked. See the priority list here.
The next priority ranking of guideline topics will take place after the Call for Guideline Topic Proposals 2024.
Throughout the timeframe of validity of the Priority Topics, a limited number will be selected by the EAN Board by batch to receive dedicated funding using another set of criteria as listed below:
- diversity in the subspecialties of the CPGs topics;
- proposals in association with a partner organization;
- proposals suggested by more than one SP;
- proposals suggested by SPs that have not published an EAN GL in the last 5 years; and
- clinical areas not covered in a previous selection
An Invitation for Conducting Guidelines on Priority Topics will be sent to the relevant Scientific & Coordinating Panels to form a Guideline Taskforce to undertake the development of full clinical practice guidelines.
Topics have been selected for 2022 and 2023. The relevant Scientific Panels have already received the invitation. The Guideline Production Group, Scientific Committee, and Board will then review the proposals.
In case a Priority Topic is not selected for this round, the Panel has the option to submit it via the bottom-up process or wait for the next selection process.
The next selection will take place after the Call for Guideline Topic Proposals 2024 and the priority ranking of topics.
| November 2023 | Selection of Priority Guidelines for 2023 by the Board |
| December 2023 | Announcement of Results |
| January 2024 | Invitation for Conducting Guidelines on Priority Topics (Scientific Panels) |
| March 2024 | Guideline Project Kick-off |
| Q4 2024 | Call for Guideline Topic Proposals for the period 2024 - 2026 |
Once the Guideline Proposal has been officially accepted, the guideline will go through a rigorous production process.
| STEPS | DESCRIPTION |
| PROPOSAL ACCEPTANCE | An individual/group may submit a proposal via: (1) top-down process; i.e. joining the Invitation for Conducting Guidelines for Priority Topics, in which the EAN selects a limited number of topics from the highest priority ranking topics from the Call for Guideline Topics and additional criteria. (every 2 years) (2) bottom-up process; i.e. submitting a Guideline Proposal directly to the GPG via scientific@ean.org. (any time) Please keep in mind that guidelines from the top-down process are of EAN’s priority and will receive dedicated funding and support. Proposals submitted through the bottom-up process will only receive the standard EAN support. |
| GUIDELINE TASKFORCE WORK ORGANIZATION | Followed by an introductory meeting with the EAN guideline methodologist, The Guideline Taskforce shall provide the GPG with the organizational details of the guideline work, including the budget breakdown, register of interests, methodological support needed, etc. In case the guideline is a collaboration with another society, a guideline agreement is to be signed as well. |
| PROTOCOL SUBMISSION | The Guideline Task Force defines in detail the stakeholder involvement, scope and purpose, literature search, PICOs, etc. by completing the EAN Guideline Protocol template. |
| PROTOCOL REVIEW & APPROVAL | The Guideline Production Group and Scientific Committee review the Guideline Protocol submitted and provide feedback. Once the Guideline Task Force successfully amends all suggestions by the reviewers, the protocol is then considered approved. |
| GUIDELINE MANUSCRIPT SUBMISSION | The Guideline Task Force drafts the guideline with the guidance of the Guideline Production Group. |
| GUIDELINE MANUSCRIPT APPROVAL | The Guideline Production Group and Scientific Committee review the Guideline Manuscript submitted and provide feedback. Once the Guideline Task Force successfully revises the draft according to the comments, the manuscript is considered approved. |
| SUBMISSION TO EJoN | The guideline is submitted to EAN’s official journal, European Journal of Neurology (EJoN) |
| OPEN FOR PUBLIC COMMENTS | Simultaneously, the guideline is uploaded online for 15 days, accessible to EAN individual members for comments. The Guideline Task Force decides whether to incorporate comments received. |
| EJoN PEER REVIEW | The guideline is reviewed by the EJoN |
| OFFICIAL ACCEPTANCE | The guideline is accepted as official EAN Guideline. |
| PROMOTION | Once the guideline is officially accepted by the journal and is in preparation for publication, the EAN Head Office prepares infographics & EANPAges article in collaboration with the corresponding author, and other, like social media posts for the guideline. |
| PUBLICATION | The EAN Guideline is published in EJoN The EAN Guideline is put into Guideline Reference Center |