Declaration and Handling of Conflicts of Interest in Guidelines

Clinical guidelines are developed in order to support physicians and patients in specific clinical situations when decisions concerning diagnosis and treatment are made. Recommendations provided in guidelines are based on the findings of clinical studies and on expert opinion. Identical study findings may be evaluated differently depending on whether or not guideline authors have conflicts of interest (1). A conflict of interest is defined as a circumstance that gives rise to a risk that professional judgement or actions concerning a primary interest may be inappropriately influenced by a secondary interest (2, 3). A conflict of interest is therefore a state of affairs, not a biased evaluat…