Abstract
BackgroundThe potential of clinical practice guidelines has not been realized due to inconsistent adoption in clinical practice. Optimising intrinsic characteristics of guidelines (e.g., its wording and format) that are associated with uptake (as perceived by their end users) may have potential. Using findings from a realist review on guideline uptake and consultation with experts in guideline development, we designed a conceptual version of a future tool called Guideline Implementability Tool (GUIDE-IT). The tool will aim to involve family physicians in the guideline development process by providing a process to assess draft guideline recommendations. This feedback will then be given back to developers to consider when finalizing the recommendations. As guideline characteristics are best assessed by end-users, the objectives of the current study were to explore how family physicians perceive guideline implementability, and to determine what components should comprise the final GUIDE-IT prototype.MethodsWe conducted a qualitative study with family physicians inToronto, Ontario. Two experienced investigators conducted one-hour interviews with family physicians using a semi-structured interview guide to 1) elicit feedback on perceptions on guideline implementability; 2) to generate a discussion in response to three draft recommendations; and 3) to provide feedback on the conceptual GUIDE-IT. Sessions were audio taped and transcribed verbatim. Data collection and analysis were guided by content analyses.Results20 family physicians participated. They perceived guideline uptake according to facilitators and barriers across 6 categories of guideline implementability (format, content, language, usability, development, and the practice environment). Participants’ feedback on 3 draft guideline recommendations were grouped according to guideline perception, cognition, and agreement. When asked to comment on GUIDE-IT, most respondents believed that the tool would be useful, but urged to involve “regular” or community family physicians in the process, and suggested that an online system would be the most efficient way to deliver it.ConclusionsOur study identified facilitators and barriers of guideline implementability from the perspective of community and academic family physicians that will be used to build our GUIDE-IT prototype. Our findings build on current knowledge by showing that family physicians perceive guideline uptake mostly according to factors that are in the control of guideline developers.
Highlights
The potential of clinical practice guidelines has not been realized due to inconsistent adoption in clinical practice
Once we developed the conceptual GUIDE-IT tool, the steps in the tool development process were to better understand the barriers to using the knowledge gleaned from our Realist Review and to transform our conceptual tool design into a functional prototype
The specific objectives of this study were to explore 1) what guideline end-users perceive as important in guidelines, guideline development and uptake; 2) to determine how family physicians perceive a set of draft guideline recommendations; and 3) to determine what components should comprise the final GUIDE-IT prototype
Summary
The potential of clinical practice guidelines has not been realized due to inconsistent adoption in clinical practice. Optimising intrinsic characteristics of guidelines (e.g., its wording and format) that are associated with uptake (as perceived by their end users) may have potential. The tool will aim to involve family physicians in the guideline development process by providing a process to assess draft guideline recommendations. Clinical practice guidelines are considered an important knowledge translation tool to inform clinical practice for family physicians, yet their potential has not been realized due to inconsistent adoption in clinical practice [1,2,3]. Extrinsic strategies are important since gaps in uptake and use continue to exist even if guidelines are well developed and implementable These strategies have had modest impact on quality of care with highly variable costs [6]. We believe that optimising the intrinsic characteristics of guidelines (e.g., wording and format) that are associated with uptake may have greater potential to improve uptake at minimal cost, be easier to implement, and may be broadly applicable
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