[A survey of actual clinical application patterns in Korean diagnostic guidelines for inflammatory bowel disease]

The aim of this study was to analyze the actual application patterns of how Korean diagnostic guidelines for inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) were applied in clinical practice.

Questionnaires regarding guidelines for ulcerative colitis (UC), Crohn's disease (CD), intestinal Behçet's disease (BD) and intestinal tuberculosis (TB), were distributed during the 2011 Korean Association for the Study of Intestinal Disease annual conference, and e-mail survey was additionally conducted. Forty eight questionnaires were collected.

Most of responders (79.2%) were working at secondary (≥500 beds) or tertiary referral centers. For the necessity of guidelines, 93.8% of responders gave positive answers in UC; 95.8% in CD; 81.3% in BD; 91.7% in TB. Of the clinicians, 95.8%, 91.7%, 64.6%, 77.1% had read UC, CD, BD and TB guideline, and 87.0%, 93.2%, 90.3%, and 92.0% replied that diagnostic guidelines for UC, CD, BD and TB were helpful in practice, respectively. Practice patterns were changed in 39.1%, 33.2%, 41.9%, and 54.1% of responders by UC, CD, BD and TB guidelines, respectively. For the needs of update, 58.7% of responders answered 'yes' in UC, 54.5% in CD, 51.6% in BD and 48.7% in TB. There were differences between recommendations and practice patterns, including colonoscopy surveillance in UC, radiological examinations for small bowel in CD and for intestinal obstruction in UC, or biopsy method in UC, CD and TB, and diagnostic criteria in BD.

Although most of responders perceived the Korean diagnostic guidelines for IBD, there were differences between recommendations of guidelines and actual practice patterns. Therefore, the publicity and revision of diagnostic guidelines are important to reconcile theory and practice.