title: [Guidelines and the psychology of medical decision making in the treatment of depressive disorders].
abstract: Guidelines aim at improving medical decision making. Guidelines try to influence medical behaviour in contrast to textbooks and reviews which want to improve medical knowledge. Scientific models of medical decision making such as the action theory and empirical data on the effects of guidelines suggest that guidelines will not always reach their goal but instead can even deteriorate medical quality. The problem of guidelines in medicine is discussed in reference to depressive disorders. The problems at stake are nevertheless valid for medicine as a whole. Therefore it must be tested in controlled clinical trials whether guideline exposed physicians have better results with their patients than guideline naive physicians. Only such guidelines should be called evidence based for which positive effects have been empirically demonstrated.
authors.affiliation: Forschungsgruppe Psychosomatische Rehabilitation am Campus Benjamin Franklin der Charité und an der Rehabilitationsklinik Seehof der BfA, Teltow/Berlin. michael.linden@charite.de
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Linden
mesh_terms: D002986:Clinical Trials as Topic; D003657:Decision Making; D003866:Depressive Disorder / Q000628:therapy*; D017408:Guidelines as Topic / Q000592:standards*; D006801:Humans