title: General practitioners' preferences for interventions to improve guideline adherence.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Interventions aimed at improving guideline adherence should take into account the specific features of the target users; however, it is unclear how general practitioners (GPs) evaluate the different types of interventions. The aim of this paper was to identify GPs' preferences for interventions to improve guideline adherence in practice and whether these differ across key guideline recommendations.
  
  
  METHODS
  An electronic survey was conducted among 703 GPs working in the south-western part of the Netherlands. Each survey focused on two of four guidelines: cerebrovascular accident, eye inflammation, thyroid disorders and urinary tract infection. GPs were asked to rate potential interventions in terms of their usefulness in improving guideline adherence in general and for specific key guideline recommendations.
  
  
  RESULTS
  264 GPs (38%) completed the questionnaire. In general, GPs preferred interactive small group meetings (84% rated this as much or very much encouraging), audit and feedback (53%), organizational interventions (50%) and the use of local opinion leaders (50%) as methods for improving guideline adherence. Financial interventions (24%), distribution of educational materials (22%) and big group educational meetings (21%) were of least interest. Some interventions were preferred by GPs irrespective of the specific key recommendations (e.g. audit and feedback), while ratings for other interventions differed across key recommendations (reminders/computer support).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  To implement guidelines, interventions need to be identified that are acceptable and appealing to the target group. GPs seem to have general and recommendation-specific preferences regarding interventions, these should be taken into account when developing plans for guideline implementation to encourage the uptake of guidelines in practice.
authors: Scientific Center for Care and Welfare (Tranzo), Tilburg University, Tilburg, The Netherlands; Scientific Institute for Quality of Healthcare (IQ healthcare), Radboud University Medical Center, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
authors: Marjolein
authors: M
authors: Lugtenberg
authors: Jako S
authors: JS
authors: Burgers
authors: Dolly
authors: D
authors: Han
authors: Gert P
authors: GP
authors: Westert
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D058006:General Practice / Q000592:standards / Q000639:trends; D058005:General Practitioners / Q000592:standards*; D019983:Guideline Adherence / Q000592:standards* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D019538:Health Care Surveys; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009426:Netherlands; D017410:Practice Guidelines as Topic / Q000592:standards*; D010818:Practice Patterns, Physicians' / Q000592:standards / Q000639:trends; D058996:Quality Improvement; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires
keywords: clinical practice guidelines; general practice; general practitioners; guideline adherence; implementation; interventions