Abstract | BACKGROUND: In spite of numerous guidelines for evidence based diagnostic and therapy adequate knowledge of current recommendations is disappointingly low. In the Hypertension Evaluation Project ( HEP I) we showed that awareness of national hypertension guidelines under German practitioners was less than 25% in the year 2000. This indicates the need for efficient strategies to relevantly improve guideline awareness. METHODS: To asses different tools for amending guideline knowledge we used three strategies (guideline in print, interactive guideline, expert seminars) to train 8325 randomised physicians, who had participated in the HEP I trial. Guideline knowledge of the trained physicians was again tested with the HEP questionnaire and compared to a control group of HEP I physicians. RESULTS: The return rate of questionnaires was 57.9% without a significant distinction between the groups. Overall guideline awareness was still low but remarkably improved compared to the results of HEP I (37.1% vs. 23.7%, p < 0.0001). There was no difference between the trained physicians and the control group (35.8% and 35.9% vs. 39.7%, p = n.s.). CONCLUSION: We investigated the influence of different strategies to improve guideline awareness among German physicians. None of our interventions (guideline in print, interactive guideline, expert seminars) brought a notable benefit compared to control group. However, overall knowledge of guideline contents increased from 23.7% to 37.1% over five years. Therefore, other probably multimodal interventions are necessary to significantly improve guideline awareness beyond spontaneous advancement. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ISRCTN53383289.
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Authors | Jens Hagemeister, Christian A Schneider, Holger Diedrichs, Diana Mebus, Holger Pfaff, Gernot Wassmer, Hans W Höpp |
Journal | Trials
(Trials)
Vol. 9
Pg. 39
(Jun 25 2008)
ISSN: 1745-6215 [Electronic] England |
PMID | 18578855
(Publication Type: Journal Article)
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