General practitioners' preferences for interventions to improve guideline adherence

Marjolein Lugtenberg*, Jako S. Burgers, Dolly Han, Gert P. Westert

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

40 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Rationale, aims and objectives Interventions aimed at improving guideline adherence should take into account the specific features of the target users; however, it is unclear how general practitioners (GPs) evaluate the different types of interventions. The aim of this paper was to identify GPs' preferences for interventions to improve guideline adherence in practice and whether these differ across key guideline recommendations. Method An electronic survey was conducted among 703 GPs working in the south-western part of the Netherlands. Each survey focused on two of four guidelines: cerebrovascular accident, eye inflammation, thyroid disorders and urinary tract infection. GPs were asked to rate potential interventions in terms of their usefulness in improving guideline adherence in general and for specific key guideline recommendations. Results 264 GPs (38%) completed the questionnaire. In general, GPs preferred interactive small group meetings (84% rated this as much or very much encouraging), audit and feedback (53%), organizational interventions (50%) and the use of local opinion leaders (50%) as methods for improving guideline adherence. Financial interventions (24%), distribution of educational materials (22%) and big group educational meetings (21%) were of least interest. Some interventions were preferred by GPs irrespective of the specific key recommendations (e.g. audit and feedback), while ratings for other interventions differed across key recommendations (reminders/computer support). Conclusions To implement guidelines, interventions need to be identified that are acceptable and appealing to the target group. GPs seem to have general and recommendation-specific preferences regarding interventions, these should be taken into account when developing plans for guideline implementation to encourage the uptake of guidelines in practice.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)820-826
Number of pages7
JournalJournal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice
Volume20
Issue number6
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Dec 2014
Externally publishedYes

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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