What is a Clinical Practice Guideline?
Clinical practice guidelines contain systematically developed statements that assist clinicians and patients to make clinical decisions concerning health care for specific clinical conditions. Sackett et al (1997) define clinical practice guidelines as “user-friendly statements” for a collection of patients, based on the best external evidence. In this context user can be seen as doctors, nurses, allied health professionals who may use guidelines individually or as part of a multidisciplinary team. The National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) (1999) have published A guide to the development, implementation and evaluation of clinical practice guidelines which also covers principles of clinical guideline development and implementation. The NHMRC (1999) also recognises that if guidelines purport to be a general guide subject to expert clinical judgement there is less risk of liability and recommends that a legal disclaimer should be included in all guidelines. Suggestions are
