[Formal decision aids in gastroenterology--results of a survey]

Formal decision aids such as scores, decision-trees and expert systems, are recommended for supporting research and daily clinical work. In the field for gastroenterology it is unknown, to which degree these tools are accepted and applied in clinical routine. We therefore conducted a mail survey in order to find out whether clinical gastroenterologists know, use or want formal decision-aids. To all clinical members of a german gastroenterological scientific society (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Verdauungs- und Stoffwechselkrankheiten, n = 584) an information leaflet and a questionnaire was sent. The form contained questions about use, knowledge and requests with respect to decision-aids in gastroenterology and concerning the attitude to computerized decision-aids in general. 584 clinicians received the questionnaire, 215 sent it back for analysis (39%). Formal decision-aids were used by half of the survey participants (56%), mainly three scores (Child-Pugh, Best and other indices for inflammatory bowel disease, Ranson) and four classifications (TNM, Forrest, Savary-Miller, Paquet). Computer-based formal decision-aids (e.g. expert systems) were used by a minority. Clinicians, who applied formal decision-aids stated more frequently a request for further decision-aids (72%) than those who did not (46%). A considerable part of the survey participants believed that computerized decision-aids will come into clinical routine (52%) and will improve education (37%) and clinical practice (35%). 88% were convinced, that decision-aids should be tested in controlled clinical trials before a clinical use can be recommended. There is a discrepancy between propagation of formal decision-aids and it's clinical use. Only a few scores and classifications are used in clinical routine.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)