Family physicians' opinions and attitudes to three clinical practice guidelines

Clinical practice guidelines (CPGs) have been promoted as a strategy to measure and improve the quality of patient care. However, more effort has been expended on creating guidelines than implementing them. We surveyed family physicians about their knowledge of and attitudes toward 3 well-publicized CPGs.

A survey questionnaire was sent to a national sample of 600 family physicians selected at random from a file from the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP).

After 2 mailings, the response rate was 71%. For each of the 3 guidelines, roughly 60% of respondents were familiar or somewhat familiar with the CPG. More than half of family physicians studied said they have changed their medical practices based on CPGs, and only 3% said they do not believe in guidelines and would not use them. Use of CPGs was lowest among physicians in solo practice and among those working in rural areas. However, no significant differences in CPG use or familiarity were noted based on number of years in practice. Many respondents indicated an interest in keeping CPGs current via the internet.

Most American family physicians find CPGs to be helpful, and familiarity with them is fairly uniform across most subgroups studied.