Prevention and Management of Ovarian Hyperstimulation Syndrome (OHSS)

A comprehensive search for guidelines was undertaken to identify the most relevant guidelines to consider for adaptation.

Inclusion/exclusion criteria followed in the search and retrieval of guidelines to be adapted: 

·  Selecting only evidence-based guidelines (guideline must include a report on systematic literature searches and explicit links between individual recommendations and their supporting evidence) 

· Selecting only national and/or international guidelines 

· Specific range of dates for publication (using Guidelines published or updated in 2010 and later)

· Selecting peer-reviewed publications only 

·  Selecting guidelines written in the English language 

·  Excluding guidelines written by a single author, not on behalf of an organization to be valid and comprehensive, a guideline ideally requires multidisciplinary input

·  Excluding guidelines published without references as the panel needs to know whether a thorough literature review was conducted and whether current evidence was used in the preparation of the recommendations 

The following characteristics of the retrieved guidelines were summarized in a table:

•      Developing organization/authors

•      Date of publication, posting, and release

•  Country/language of publication

•  Date of posting and/or release

• Dates of the search used by the source guideline developers

All retrieved Guidelines were screened and appraised using the AGREE II instrument (www.agreetrust.org) by at least two members. the panel decided on a cut-off point or ranked the guidelines (any guideline scoring above 50% on the rigour dimension was retained) This Guideline is adapted mainly from the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) Practice Guideline February 2024 “Prevention of moderate and severe ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome”, the RCOG Green-top Guideline No. 5 February 2016 “The Management of Ovarian Hyperstimulation Syndrome” and the Canadian Society of Obstetrics & Gynaecology (SOGC) N 268 November 2017 “Diagnosis and Management of Ovarian Hyperstimulation Syndrome”(5).