Changes in perceived effect of practice guidelines among primary care doctors

Evidence suggests that when doctors use systematically developed clinical practice guidelines they have the potential to improve the safety, quality and value of health care. The purpose of this study was to evaluate recent changes in the perceptions of practice guidelines among US primary care doctors.

Data were collected from the Community Tracking Survey 1996-97 and 2000-01. All results were weighted and adjusted to reflect the complex survey design.

Over the 5 years, the proportion of primary care doctors who said that practice guidelines had at least a moderate effect on their practice of medicine increased from 45.8% to 60.7%. This increase was nearly equal among primary care doctors of family medicine, internal medicine and paediatrics. In the 2001 survey, a higher perceived effect of practice guidelines was described by female doctors (OR = 1.39, 95% CI 1.19-1.63) and doctors who were practising in a large model group (OR = 1.73; 95% CI 1.04-2.89). Doctors who graduated from medical school within 10 years of the survey were more likely to report that practice guidelines had a positive effect on their practice of medicine than doctors who graduated 10 or more years before the survey.

The perceived effect of practice guidelines on primary care doctors increased over time. Improved dissemination of guidelines and curriculum changes may have led recent primary care graduates to view practice guidelines as more important.