gms | German Medical Science

Background: The Clinical Practice Guidelines (CPG) contribute to the implementation of the clinical reasoning principles and facilitate a correct management of health problems.

Objectives: To know the attitudes of Family and Community Medicine doctors in training (DIT) towards the CPG, their degree of use of these guidelines and the Web pages they visit the most.

Methods: Using an on-line questionnaire we assessed attitudes of DIT, as well as their opinion on different aspects of the CPG such as: utility, education level, use and location.

Results: Of a total of 64 residents, 49 answered (76,6%). Only 44,9% reported frequent use of CPG, although in a 1–10 range, utility of such instruments for the family physician was rated with a mean score of 8.6 (SD: 0.9) and of 7.1 (SD: 1.7) for patients. The knowledge level about CPG was considered acceptable by 61.2% of the DIT (8.2% very good). We observed a linear trend (p=0.01) between frequent use and training years, from 26.7% in first year to 77.8% in the fourth. The most visited Web pages were ‘GuíaSalud’ (81.6%) and NICE (38.8%).

Discussion: Even though most of the Family Medicine DIT do not frequently use CPG, they consider CPG useful instruments for both, doctor and the patient. Most of DIT have attended a training activity about the use of CPG and its use increases in the latest years of training.Implications for guideline developers/users. The person in charge of training must help DIT to increase their use of CPG in the clinical settings.