How do guideline developers identify, incorporate and report patient preferences? An international cross-sectional survey.

Background: Guidelines based on patient preferences differ from those developed solely by clinicians and may promote patient adherence to guideline recommendations. There is scant evidence on how to develop patient-informed guidelines. This study aimed to describe how guideline developers identify, incorporate and report patient preferences.

Large Contaminated Ventral Hernia Repair Using Component Separation Technique with Synthetic Mesh.

Background: Large ventral hernia repair represents a major reconstructive surgical challenge, especially under contaminated conditions. Synthetic mesh is usually avoided in these circumstances because of fear of mesh infection, although evidence is outdated and does not regard new materials and techniques. The authors evaluated the safety of synthetic mesh in large contaminated ventral hernia repair.

How can clinical practice guidelines be adapted to facilitate shared decision making? A qualitative key-informant study.

Background: To explore how clinical practice guidelines can be adapted to facilitate shared decision making.

Methods: This was a qualitative key-informant study with group discussions and semi-structured interviews. First, 75 experts in guideline development or shared decision making participated in group discussions at two international conferences.

Pragmatic evidence and textual arrangements: a case study of French clinical cancer guidelines.

Both critics and supporters of evidence-based medicine view clinical practice guidelines as an important component of this self-defined "new paradigm" whose goal is to rationalize medicine by grounding clinical decision-making in a careful assessment of the medical literature. We present an analysis of the debates within a guideline development group (GDG) that led to the drafting, revision and publication of a French cancer guideline. Our ethnographic approach focuses on the various aspects of the dispositif (or apparatus) that defines the nature and roles of participants, procedures, topics and resources within the GDG.

Diagnosing and treating premenstrual syndrome in five western nations.

Premenstrual syndrome (PMS) and its derivative Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder (PMDD) are controversial medical diagnoses. On one hand they are ubiquitous in English-language cultures; on the other they are for many emblematic of unnecessary medicalization of natural physiological processes. In this paper, we use data produced by IMS, a health care information and research firm, to analyze office-based medical practice related to PMS/PMDD in five countries.

The biomedical standardization of premenstrual syndrome.

This essay traces the history of premenstrual syndrome (PMS) in French, British, and American medical literature from 1950 to 2004. Aetiological theories, treatments and diagnostic criteria have varied over time and place, reflecting local conditions and changing notions of objectivity and evidence. During the 1970s researchers in each nation utilised different research strategies to overcome variation and contradictory results characteristic of PMS research.

The emergence of clinical practice guidelines.

Clinical practice guidelines are now ubiquitous. This article describes the emergence of such guidelines in a way that differs from the two dominant explanations, one focusing on administrative cost-cutting and the other on the need to protect collective professional autonomy. Instead, this article argues that the spread of guidelines represents a new regulation of medical care resulting from a confluence of circumstances that mobilized many different groups.

Systematically assessing the situational relevance of electronic knowledge resources: a mixed methods study.

Unlabelled: Electronic Knowledge Resources (EKRs) are increasingly used by physicians, but their situational relevance has not been systematically examined.

Objective: Systematically scrutinize the situational relevance of EKR-derived information items in and outside clinical settings.

Background: Physicians use EKRs to accomplish four cognitive objectives (C1-4), and three organizational objectives (O1-3): (C1) Answer questions/solve problems/support decision-making in a clinical context; (C2) fulfill educational-research objectives; (C3) search for personal interest or curiosity; (C4) overcome limits of human memory; (O1) share information with patients, families, or caregivers; (O2) exchange information with other health professionals; (O3) plan-manage-monitor tasks with other health professionals.