The Development, Problems and Application of Clinical Practice Guidelines: How Clinicians Can Read the Essence of Clinical Guidelines from the Surface to the Inside

Abstract

Evidence-based medicine has greatly contributed to the improvement of the level of medical services and health regulation. However, the critical use of the published medical literature and medical databases by Chinese clinical practitioners is insufficient, and the achievements of cutting-edge research methods of evidence-based medicine are not used by every Chinese clinical practitioner for benefit. This article provided a concise and well understood methodological illustration of the development of evidence-based medicine practice guidelines, to help Chinese clinical practitioners better understand the philosophy of guideline development by presenting the definitions of clinical practice guidelines and sorting out the standard development process of the guidelines. This paper analyzes from three parts, "Formulation of Clinical Practice Guidelines""Problems Existing in the Formulation of Clinical Practice Guidelines" and "How Clinicians Apply Clinical Guidelines". In this paper, the two guideline development standards, published by World Health Organization (WHO) and together with Guideline International Network (GIN) and McMaster University, were simplified, combined and summarized into were more concise. The problems existing in the formulation of clinical practice guidelines are analyzed with cases, in order to guide clinicians to apply the guidelines.

Keywords

• evidence-based medicine|clinical practice guidelines|guideline development|guideline evaluation|population, intervention, comparison, and outcomes of clinics