Background to the CARI Guidelines 

The CARI Guidelines is an evidence-based project that began in 1999, managed be the Council of the Australian and New Zealand Society of Nephrology (ANZSN) and Board of Kidney Health Australia (KHA).

CARI seeks to improve the quality of care and outcomes for patients with kidney disease in Australia & New Zealand by facilitating the development and implementation of clinical practice guidelines based on the best available evidence and effectiveness.

The CARI guidelines are now divided into three disease stages - Dialysis; Chronic Kidney Disease; and Transplantation. Each guideline comprises various subtopics and their recommendations. 

The CARI Guidelines process includes the revision of guidelines every three years to incorporate the latest evidence and keep guidelines relevant. As updating is completed, the finalised guidelines will be published in the journal 'Nephrology'. Please note that guidelines developed before 2004 were created according to a different process to the current one, and have not been peer reviewed.

Development and review process
Existing guidelines cover the areas of Chronic Kidney Disease; Dialysis and Transplantation. The CARI Guidelines' development and review process has been recently revised to include:

• Evidence rating according to the GRADE system
• peer review by at least 3 peer reviewers
• inclusion of a public consultation phase
• the reformatting of existing guidelines with increasing focus on guidelines that are clearly evidence-based
• at least 3 face to face meetings for Guideline Group members to assist with meeting deadlines

Implementation
The CARI Office assists writers by locating relevant trials and conducts appropriate literature searches. The Research Officer also develops summary Evidence Tables for each guideline subtopic. An Iron implementation project and a timely appropriate Vascular Access project have been run. Find further details here>

The CARI process
The updating and revision of all guidelines is scheduled to occur every 3 years, ensuring that guideline contents are kept relatively up to date. Some guideline subtopics will be updated prior to 3 years, when it is considered there is a need to do so.

Convenors are expected to prompt this process when they become aware of key new evidence that is relevant to their guideline topic. The CARI Guidelines are strictly evidence-based – that is, they are drawn from the published literature, which is carefully assessed for its level of certainty. Only when the conclusions in a particular area are based on a high degree of certainty is the guideline ratified.

 Note these links to help you refer to CARI Guideline content
Search for a CARI Guideline     
What's new at CARI  
Published CARI Guideines 
Contact the CARI Office  *   www.cari.org.au