Searching for Practice Guidelines

Practice guidelines are called several different things:  clinical practice guidelines, practice guidelines, CPGs, or just guidelines.

The Institute of Medicine (IOM) offers several definitions of clinical practice guidelines:

"Statements that include recommendations, intended to optimize patient care, that are informed by a systematic review of evidence and an assessment of the benefits and harms of alternative care options."  (From Institute of Medicine (US) Committee on Standards for Developing Trustworthy Clinical Practice Guidelines; Graham R, Mancher M, Miller Wolman D, et al., editors. Clinical Practice Guidelines We Can Trust. Washington (DC): National Academies Press (US); 2011. Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK209539/doi: 10.17226/13058)

“Clinical practice guidelines are systematically developed statements to assist practitioner and patient decisions about appropriate health care for specific clinical circumstances” (Institute of Medicine, 1990). https://www.nccih.nih.gov/health/providers/clinicalpractice

Practice guidelines are typically developed and published by third party associations and organizations in the health care field.  

You can easily find practice guidelines by using various OUWB databases:

Associations and organizations publish clinical practice guidelines on their websites and/or in their journals.

Here are some websites that collect various practice guidelines:

Websites:

Journal Articles:

• Hayward RSA, Wilson MC, Tunis SR, Bass EB, Guyatt G. Users' Guides to the Medical Literature VIII. How to Use Clinical Practice Guidelines A. Are the Recommendations Valid?. JAMA. 1995;274(7):570–574. doi:10.1001/jama.1995.03530070068032
   
• Wilson MC, Hayward RSA, Tunis SR, et al. Users' Guides to the Medical Literature VIII. How to Use Clinical Practice Guidelines B. What Are the Recommendations and Will They Help You in Caring for Your Patients?. JAMA. 1995;274(20):1630–1632. doi:10.1001/jama.1995.03530200066040
   
• Buccheri RK. Critical appraisal tools and reporting guidelines for evidence-based practice. Worldviews on evidence-based nursing. 12/2017;14(6):463-472. doi: 10.1111/wvn.12258.
   
• Siebenhofer A, Semlitsch T, Herborn T, Siering U, Kopp I, Hartig J. Validation and reliability of a guideline appraisal mini-checklist for daily practice use. BMC Medical Research Methodology. 2016;16:39. doi:10.1186/s12874-016-0139-x.
   

• Semlitsch T, Blank WA, Kopp IB, Siering U, Siebenhofer A. Evaluating Guidelines: A Review of Key Quality Criteria. Deutsches Ärzteblatt International. 2015;112(27-28):471-478. doi:10.3238/arztebl.2015.0471.

• Siering U, Eikermann M, Hausner E, Hoffmann-Eßer W, Neugebauer EA. Appraisal Tools for Clinical Practice Guidelines: A Systematic Review. Tu Y-K, ed. PLoS ONE. 2013;8(12):e82915. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0082915.
   

• Clubb AB, Dahm P. How to critically appraise a clinical practice guideline. Indian Journal of Urology : IJU : Journal of the Urological Society of India. 2011;27(4):498-502. doi:10.4103/0970-1591.91441.

• Graham ID. A comparison of clinical practice guideline appraisal instruments. International journal of technology assessment in health care. 2000;16(4):1024-1038.