Attributes of clinical guidelines that influence use of guidelines in general practice: observational study.

Objective: To determine which attributes of clinical practice guidelines influence the use of guidelines in decision making in clinical practice.

Design: Observational study relating the use of 47 different recommendations from 10 national clinical guidelines to 12 different attributes of clinical guidelines-for example, evidence based, controversial, concrete.

Setting: General practice in the Netherlands.

Dissemination of guidelines: which sources do physicians use in order to be informed?

Objective: To gain insight into processes of dissemination of clinical guidelines, sources of information physicians use to become informed about them, and factors influencing these processes.

Design: National survey among a random sample of family physicians using a structured questionnaire.

Setting: Family practice in The Netherlands; evaluation of a national programme of (evidence based) practice guidelines.

[Performance of family practitioners according to the guideline otitis media acuta of the Dutch College of Family Practitioners].

Objective: To establish to which degree the guidelines of the Otitis media acuta standard of the Netherlands college of general practitioners (NHG) are followed in practice and what is GPs' opinion of them.

Design: Survey.

Setting: 65 general practitioners settled throughout the Netherlands.