Factors influencing the implementation of clinical guidelines for health care professionals: A systematic meta-review
By Anneke L. Francke, Marieke C. Smit, Anke J. E. de Veer, Patriek Mistiaen. BMC Medical Informatics Decis. Mak., 2008
1,127 citations recorded by the source corpus.
BackgroundNowadays more and more clinical guidelines for health care professionals are being developed. However, this does not automatically mean that these guidelines are actually implemented. The aim of this meta-review is twofold: firstly, to gain a better understanding of which factors affect the implementation of guidelines, and secondly, to provide insight into the "state-of-the-art" regarding research within this field.MethodsA search of five literature databases and one website was performed to find relevant existing systematic reviews or meta-reviews. Subsequently, a two-step inclusion process was conducted: (1) screening on the basis of references and abstracts and (2) screening based on full-text papers. After that, relevant data from the included reviews were extracted and the methodological quality of the reviews was assessed by using the Quality Assessment Checklist for Reviews.ResultsTwelve systematic reviews met our inclusion criteria. No previous systematic meta-reviews meeting all our inclusion criteria were found. Two of the twelve reviews scored high on the checklist used, indicating only "minimal" or "minor flaws". The other ten reviews scored in the lowest of middle ranges, indicating "extensive" or "major" flaws.A substantial proportion (although not all) of the reviews indicates that effective strategies often have multiple components and that the use of one single strategy, such as reminders only or an educational intervention, is less effective.Besides, characteristics of the guidelines themselves affect actual use. For instance, guidelines that are easy to understand, can easily be tried out, and do not require specific resources, have a greater chance of implementation.In addition, characteristics of professionals – e.g., awareness of the existence of the guideline and familiarity with its content – likewise affect implementation.Furthermore, patient characteristics appear to exert influence: for instance, co-morbidity reduces the chance that guidelines are followed.Finally, environmental characteristics may influence guideline implementation. For example, a lack of support from peers or superiors, as well as insufficient staff and time, appear to be the main impediments.ConclusionExisting reviews describe various factors that influence whether guidelines are actually used. However, the evidence base is still thin, and future sound research – for instance comparing combinations of implementation strategies versus single strategies – is needed.
Subfields: General Health Professions, Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/4ce6fc63a19ea96ed1997d6ce3357a463d1f2c43
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In General Health Professions
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Citations in the corpus
- EHRs Connect Research and Practice: Where Predictive Modeling, Artificial Intelligence, and Clinical Decision Support Intersect (2012, background): “In a sense, it relies heavily on natural evolutionary principles and less on artificial constructs of directly altering clinical behavior, the latter of which have been shown to have limited sustainability [6].”
- Why don't physicians adhere to guideline recommendations in practice? An analysis of barriers among Dutch general practitioners (2009, neutral): “Other studies also demonstrated that lack of applicability is an important barrier to guideline adherence, particularly to patients with comorbidity [18,28,29].”
- Barriers and Strategies in Guideline Implementation—A Scoping Review (2016, methodology): “The current recommendation to promote guideline adherence is to support guidelines by active and multifaceted implementation strategies [9], although the relative efficacy of each component within the multifaceted approach still remains unclear [14,43].”