The ME/CFS Guideline Development Committee held its second meeting on Tuesday 21 October 2025.

Date: Tuesday 21 October 2025
Time: 12:30 pm – 2:30 pm AEST
Location: Virtual meeting

The meeting focused on principles of trustworthy guideline development and the GRADE (Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation) approach for assessing the certainty of evidence.

Key highlights

  • Members explored the foundations of trustworthy guideline development, including systematic review processes, assessing the certainty of evidence and the importance of transparent and structured guideline development approaches.
  • Members considered various international standards and tools for development and assessment of trustworthy guidelines, including the AGREE II tool, the GRADE approach and NHMRC Standards for Guidelines.
  • Members noted NHMRC’s role in guideline development, including governance structures and legislated responsibilities.
  • A key focus was the application of GRADE domains to assess the certainty of evidence in systematic reviews. Members also discussed approaches for rating the importance of outcomes to inform guideline recommendations. 

Next steps

The next meeting of the ME/CFS GDC is anticipated for early December 2025 and will focus on topic prioritisation and key focus areas for the evidence evaluations.