Mapping attitudes and awareness with regard to national guidelines: an e-mail survey among decision makers.

Introduction: The adoption of evidence-based guidelines within the mental health field has been slow. Changing inadequate practice is therefore a formidable challenge for mental health-care managers.

Aim: To explore decision-makers' attitudes and awareness regarding the national guidelines for psychosocial interventions targeting people with schizophrenia.

Method: A questionnaire distributed by e-mail to 592 Swedish decision-makers was analysed using descriptive and comparative techniques.

Results: Significantly more of the top-level mental health-care managers than politicians stated that they knew about the national guidelines (i.e. their release and content) and they considered the guidelines to be a good source of support for planning and allocating resources.

Conclusion: If those responsible for allocating resources (i.e. politicians) are unaware of the dissemination of national guidelines or their content, and they do not perceive the national guidelines to be a good source of support for planning and allocating resources, this is likely to have a negative influence on the remit of nurse managers as well as nursing practice.

Implications For Nursing Management: Top-level mental health-care managers have a vital role to play in the implementation of national guidelines. However, our findings indicate that implementing national guidelines in practice could be virtually impossible without strategic government support.