Barriers pediatricians face when using asthma practice guidelines

Objective: To describe barriers to the successful use of the 1997 National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) asthma guidelines. Methods; We conducted 3 focus groups to understand barriers to the use of 4 recommendations within the NHLBI guidelines (prescription of inhaled corti costeroids, recommendation of daily peak flowmeter use, smoking cessation s creening and counseling, and allergen exposure counseling). Participants: Twenty-one pediatricians and 1 nurse practitioner, who each f ollowed an average of 47 patients with asthma, participated. Six participan ts (27%) had a faculty or adjunct appointment at a medical school. Nineteen (90%) of the 21 pediatricians were board certified. Results: We identified 171 comments about barriers to adherence. Type of re commendation and physician year of graduation from medical school were rela ted to which barrier was prominent. For corticosteroid prescription, senior physicians mentioned lack of agreement, whereas younger physicians describ ed lack of confidence in dosing or recognizing contraindications. For peak flowmeter use, senior physicians emphasized lack of training. Only senior p hysicians described the inertia of previous practice as a barrier. All grou ps mentioned time limitations. Conclusions: Efforts to improve adherence to asthma guidelines should consi der the range of barriers that pediatricians face, such as lack of awarenes s, familiarity, or agreement, and external barriers owing to environmental, guideline, or patient factors. In addition, this study documents barriers not previously considered, such as lack of self-efficacy, lack of outcome e xpectancy, and inertia of previous practice, that prevent adherence, Be cau se type of recommendation and physician demographics are related to which b arriers are prominent, interventions to improve NHLBI guideline adherence s hould be tailored to these factors.