Stroke: Clinical Guidelines

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Introduction

According to Woolf et al (2012) Clinical Guidelines have become one of the foundation of efforts to improve healthcare and health care management. Methods of guideline development have progressed both in terms of methods and necessary procedures and the context for guideline development has changed with the emergence of guideline clearinghouses and large scale guideline production organisations e.g National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence. Clinical guidelines provide recommendations on how healthcare professionals should care for people with specific conditions. They can cover any aspect of a condition and may include recommendations about providing information and advice, prevention, diagnosis, treatment and longer-term management.

Guidelines are designed to support the decision-making processes in patient care . The content of a guideline is based on a systematic review of clinical evidence - the main source for evidence-based care.

The movement towards evidence-based healthcare has been gaining ground quickly over the past few years, motivated by clinicians, politicians and management concerned about quality, consistency and costs. CPGs, based on standardised best practice, have been shown to be capable of supporting improvements in quality and consistency in healthcare. Many have been developed, though the process is time- and resource-consuming. Many have been disseminated, though largely in the relatively difficult to use format of narrative text. As yet they have not had a major impact on medical practice, but their importance is growing.

Clinical guidelines aim to help health professionals and patients make the best decisions about treatment or care for a particular condition or situation. The guidelines are typically written in statement form by a reputable organization. The authors of guidelines review the research literature and take advice from experts to gather the current evidence on which to base the recomendations in a guideline. Doctors, nurses and other health care professionals are encouraged to follow clinical guidelines where appropriate.

Note : not every patient or situation fits neatly into a guideline. A guideline may not cover every eventuality and each patient's circumstance needs to be taken into consideration when a treatment is decided upon. Some doctors are critical of guidelines that may be too restrictive in their recommendations. Some guidelines are controversial. For a fuller discussion on the pros and cons of guidelines, see the folowing series of articles written in the British Medical Journal.

• Potential Benefits, Limitations, and Harms of Clinical Guidelines[1]
• Developing Guidelines[2]
• Legal and Political Considerations of Clinical Practice Guidelines[3]
• Using Clinical Guidelines[4]
• Guidelines for Clinical Guidelines: A Simple, Pragmatic Strategy for Guideline Development[5]

Guideline Organisations

NICE - National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence
SIGN - Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network
GAIN - Guidelines and Audit Implementation Network
Professional Organisations and Royal Colleges
National Guideline Clearing House

New Zealand Guidelines Group

Guidelines International Network

Stroke Clinical Guidelines

Acute

Sub Acute

Secondary Prevention

Rehabilitation

Long Term

Recent Related Research (from Pubmed)

References

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