Diabetes mellitus is a complex multisystem disease that requires high quality care. Clinical practice guidelines help physicians and patients make the best possible health care decisions and improve health care management of diabetic patients. These guidelines provide the norms for clinical management as well as monitoring of diabetes care. They are not simple algorithms but are based on struct...

BACKGROUND Hospitals use patient satisfaction surveys to assess their quality of care. A key question is whether these data provide valid information about the medically related quality of hospital care. The objective of this study was to determine whether patient satisfaction is associated with adherence to practice guidelines and outcomes for acute myocardial infarction and to identify the ke...

We examined nutrition behaviour, self-reported health and 20 health complaints of undergraduates in Finland. Students at the University of Turku in Finland participated in a cross-sectional online survey (N = 1189). For nutrition behaviour, we computed two composite food intake pattern scores (sweets, cakes and snacks; and fruits and vegetables), a dietary guideline adherence index and the subj...

R1: English expression in the abstracts is ‘mangled’. Fairly clear what is meant but room for much improvement. For instance:“In this sample, with little room for improvement due to high baselines,” – now what exactly are ‘high baselines’? We specify now on evidence-based pharmacotherapy and CHF self-care. R2: P 2, results: high guideline adherence must be due to selection bias with reference t...

BACKGROUND Internationally, several organizations have developed clinical guidelines for subfertility care to supply patients with the best possible care. However, to improve the implementation of such guidelines, we first need to gain insight into the application of clinical guidelines in daily practice. Valid quality indicators are necessary to estimate actual guideline adherence. However, no...

BACKGROUND Little is known about the attitudes toward, use of, and perceived barriers to clinical guidelines in Switzerland, a country with no national guideline agency. Moreover, there is no available data on the objective assessment of guideline knowledge in Switzerland. Therefore, we conducted a study at a large university's Department of General Internal Medicine in Switzerland to assess ph...

The relationship between blood pressure control and racial differences in the processes of hypertension care have not been well examined. We reviewed medical records of 15 768 visits to 12 general internal medicine clinics during July 1, 2001 to June 30, 2002 to determine whether visits were adherent to the Sixth Report of the Joint National Committee on Prevention, Detection, Evaluation, and T...

BACKGROUND Research evidence is insufficient to change physicians' behaviour. In 1996, Pathman developed a four step model: that physicians need to be aware of, agree with, adopt, and adhere to guidelines. OBJECTIVE To review evidence in different settings on the patterns of 'leakage' in the utilisation of clinical guidelines using Pathman's awareness-to-adherence model. METHODS A systemati...

INTRODUCTION The use of antimicrobial prophylaxis for surgical procedures is one of the measures employed to prevent the development of surgical site infections (SSI). The appropriate choice of antimicrobial agents, dosage regimen, timing, duration and use of intravenous route must be evidence based. This study aimed to assess the practice of surgical antibiotic prophylaxis and adherence of pra...

PURPOSE The purposes of this study were to: describe practice patterns, knowledge, and attitudes of pediatric dentists in North Carolina (N.C.) in delivering dietary recommendations to the parents/caregivers of infants and toddlers; and identify barriers that limit the implementation of related recommendations. METHODS Our survey instrument included 30 questions covering eight domains of barr...