How Do I Know I Have a Clinical Practice Guideline?

There is a specific way to appraise practice guidelines according to the Institute of Medicine's definition, but here are a few quick ways to decide whether or not you have a guideline you can turn to. Remember! It is ultimately up to you and your instructor to determine if your guideline fits the assignment requirements.

As you learn more about what clinical practice guidelines are, you will quickly realize that there is a difference between an article and a clinical practice guideline. Examples of clinical practice guidelines look like:

• Guideline on the Management of Blood Cholesterol: A Report of the American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association Task Force on Clinical Practice Guidelines (2018)
• Acute Liver Failure Guidelines (2023)
• Clinical Practice Guideline for the Evaluation and Treatment of Children and Adolescents With Obesity (2023)

All of these documents are characterized by:

• an association with a professional organization (a society, academy, college, etc.)
• multiple, lengthy sections addressing the diagnosis and treatment of the condition

How Do I Know I Have the Most Recent Practice Guideline?

To double-check that you are looking at the most recent guideline available, follow the tabbed instructions on the Finding CPGs tab, leading you through a ClinicalKey search and the subsequent PubMed searches. Alternatively, you could copy and paste the title of the guideline you currently have into a PubMed search and see if there are any similar titles published in more recent years. Oftentimes, professional organizations will update their published guidelines and follow any subsequent publications with "Update" or "Revised" in the new title.

Still Unsure?

Are you still wondering if you have the right sort of document? Here are published texts discussing the same topic.