Procedures for using clinical practice guidelines

Abstract

Purpose: This article provides information about clinical practice guidelines (CPCs) to facilitate their application to the practice of speech-language pathology. CPGs are sets of recommendations based on evidence, including expert clinical opinion, that have been developed by a panel of reviewers. In this article, CPGs are defined and their components and rationale for use are discussed. A guide for analyzing CPGs critically and recommendations for applying them to clinical practice are also described. Method: Two of the authors and 1 graduate student in speech-language pathology independently evaluated a CPG from the early intervention literature using the guide described in the article. An illustrative evaluation of a CPG is presented to facilitate application of the proposed critiquing guide. Results: The guide was revealed to have high interrater reliability. However, analysis of the raters' responses to the individual items revealed problems with 3 items. The authors present possible resolutions and/or explanations for the problems. Conclusion: By using the proposed guide, speech-language pathologists can increase their application of research to clinical practice, thereby enhancing their skills in informed clinical decision making.