General practitioners' use of guidelines in the consultation and their attitudes to them

Background. There is concern about the apparent lack of uptake of managemen t and referral guideline information by general practitioners (GPs) in thei r day-to-day consultations with patients. Little is understood about the ba rriers to the uptake of guidelines as perceived by GPs. Aims. To explore how GPs gain access to and use guidelines, including compu ter-based guidelines, in day-to-day consultations with their patients; and to identify the perceived problems and barriers to the use of guidelines in such situations. Method. Postal questionnaires enquiring about the practices and attitudes t owards the use of guidelines in general practice were completed by 391 of 6 00 randomly selected GPs in the South and West NHS region. Results. GPs found guidelines a useful method of accessing expert informati on. Key factors in their uptake were brevity, an authoritative and unbiased source of evidence, and resonance with the GP's usual practices; they also needed to be flexible enough to incorporate individual viewpoints. Guideli nes were perceived as being valuable to enable safe delegation of care to o ther health professionals and for sharing decision-making with patients. Di ssemination of guidelines through the medium of computers was acceptable to the majority of GPs. Virtually all (93%) responders reported adapting guid elines to the needs of individual patients. Older GPs from non-fundholding practices were least likely to show a positive attitude towards guidelines. Conclusion. In principle, there is a very positive attitude towards the use of guidelines in general practice. However, those developing guidelines fo r use by GPs in the consulting room need to be aware of the factors that fa cilitate their use in practice. Educational strategies aimed at increasing the use of guidelines need to take into account the significant proportion who show negative attitudes towards guidelines, whose characteristics have been identified in this study.