CLINICAL PRACTICE GUIDELINES: A STRATEGY FOR EVALUATING PERCEPTION AND QUALITY

Abstract

Clinical practice guidelines (CPG) are recommendations based on a systematic review of scientific evidence and generally these documents are under constant assess. For this matter, a group of health-professionals which belong to Fundación Centro Colombiano de Hipoterapia evaluated the use and quality of the used CPG using AGREE II instrument. The obtained results evidence correlation between both parameters since health-professionals trust in their acquired experience without detracting from the benefits that can be obtained with the use of guidelines. Among the mentioned benefits, improving the quality of care, effectiveness in clinical decisions, and the optimization of costs related to health care can be mentioned. Nonetheless, health-professionals reflect uncertainty in the recommendations generated by the guidelines because of the barriers presented such as strictness in its elaboration, it lacks in updates, audits and evaluations.

Key words: Clinical practice guidelines, assessment, quality.