Views about clinical practice guidelines of the Indian Psychiatric Society: A survey of psychiatrists in India.
BACKGROUND
The Indian Psychiatric Society (IPS) constituted a task force on clinical practice guidelines (CPGs) in 2004 to formulate guidelines for management of various psychiatric disorders in the Indian setting. Over the next 4 years (2005-2008), the task force published 4 volumes of guidelines covering most of the psychiatric disorders and issues in special populations. However, till now, nothing is known about the usefulness, awareness and their implementation. This was a preliminary survey to know about the usefulness and awareness of the CPGs of the IPS.


METHODS
An email survey was sent to 1100 psychiatrists, of which 107 responded.


RESULTS
Only half of the responders were aware about all the 4 volumes of the guidelines and only 12.7% of the responders had read all the four volumes. About two-thirds of the responders had referred to these guidelines in their clinical practice, either occasionally (46.1%), often (16.7%) or always (2%). Similarly, more than two-thirds of the responders considered these guidelines to be helpful in making day-to-day clinical decisions in their practice, either occasionally (48%), often (19.6%) or always (3.9%). In the open-ended questions, many of the responders discussed their dissatisfaction with these guidelines and gave suggestions as to how these guidelines could be improved.


CONCLUSIONS
There is need for better dissemination of the guidelines and making recommendations that can be applied in an Indian setting.
Grover
Sandeep
S
Department of Psychiatry, Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research, Chandigarh - 160 012, India.
Avasthi
Ajit
A