gms | German Medical Science

Background: Guideline development methodologies still face challenges. A more comprehensive multidisciplinary approach predominated by respect for the autonomy of professional societies and with special attention to organisational and patient-centred issues, might fasten the development process and improve the quality of guidelines.

Objective: assess the feasibility of a novel patient-centred network approach to multidisciplinary guideline development in infertility.

Methods: The approach was planned to result in one network guideline with patients’ pathway as a backbone and five intertwined medical-technical guidelines. To assess the feasibility of this approach, we evaluated: ‘how’ the approach was actually performed, ‘what’ related time- investments (hours) were made and ‘how’ participants experienced the approach (e.g., organisation, methodology). We applied a mixed-method evaluation, including examination of secondary sources (project descriptions), eight interviews with key-figures and a written questionnaire survey (time investments, experiences with the methodology) among all 35 participants of the project.

Results: Within two years the project was performed as planned. Participants’ total time investments were 6815 hours. Participants’ experiences with the approach were positive, facilitated by the use of a project-coordinator and patient involvement. Suggestions for improvement included earlier information provision on participants’ responsibilities, time span, format of the guidelines and the availability of a secretary and a librarian.

Discussion: The novel network approach is a feasible methodology for developing multidisciplinary patient-centred guidelines. Nonetheless, its cost-effectiveness might be questioned.

Implications for guideline developers: This study provides a feasible format for the development of patient-centred guidelines, to be improved by applying the lessons learnt from our evaluation.