An important aspect of safety and quality in healthcare is the implementation of infection prevention and control guidelines. However, little is known regarding the strength of evidence on which recommendations for such guidelines are based. This study aimed to describe the strength of recommendations of infection prevention and control guidelines published in the last 10 years. For this review, the websites of government and professional organizations for national and international infection prevention and control clinical guidelines were purposively searched. The search was limited to publications between January 2009 and April 2019, and those with a formal grading system were used to determine the strength of the evidence underpinning the recommendations. Recommendations from guidelines were categorized into 21 infection control categories. A descriptive synthesis of the data was undertaken. A total of 31 guidelines comprising 1855 recommendations were included. Guidelines were mainly developed in the USA (N = 11, 35.5%) and Canada (N = 9, 29.0%). Most guidelines used the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE) approach (N = 6, 19.4%. The majority of the guidelines contained recommendations categorized under the themes of devices (N = 316, 16.9%) and transmission-based precautions (N = 315, 16.8%). Most recommendations (N = 769, 41.5%) were graded as using evidence from descriptive studies, expert opinion and low-quality evidence. There are a vast number of infection prevention and control guidelines developed by national and international government or professional organizations, many without a strong evidence base. This presents multiple research opportunities that should prioritize common prevention activities that currently have a low evidence base.

中文翻译：

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证据的力量在哪里？审查感染预防和控制指南。

医疗保健安全和质量的重要方面是感染预防和控制指南的实施。但是，对于这种指南的建议所依据的证据的力量知之甚少。这项研究旨在描述最近10年发布的感染预防和控制指南的建议强度。为了进行本次审查，有针对性地搜索了政府和专业组织关于国家和国际感染预防和控制临床指南的网站。该搜索仅限于2009年1月至2019年4月之间的出版物，并且使用具有正式评分系统的出版物来确定支撑该建议的证据的强度。指南中的建议分为21种感染控制类别。进行了数据的描述性综合。总共包括31项指南，包括1855条建议。指南主要在美国（N = 11，35.5％）和加拿大（N = 9，29.0％）中制定。大多数指南使用建议分级评估，发展和评估（GRADE）方法（N = 6，19.4％。大多数指南包含按设备主题分类的建议（N = 316，16.9％）和基于传输的预防措施（N = 315，16.8％）。大多数建议（N = 769，41.5％）被定级为使用描述性研究，专家意见和低质量证据得出的证据，国家制定了大量的感染预防和控制指南。以及国际政府或专业组织，其中许多没有强大的证据基础。