What are Practice Guidelines?
Clinical practice guidelines are "statements that include recommendations intended to optimize patient care, informed by a systematic review of evidence and an assessment of the benefits and costs of alternative care options."
In 2011, the Institute of Medicine published Clinical Practice Guidelines We Can Trust, which "proposed standards for developing trustworthy clinical practice guidelines emphasizing transparency; management of conflict of interest; systematic review--guideline development intersection; establishing evidence foundations for and rating strength of guideline recommendations; articulation of recommendations; external review; and updating."
Finding Practice Guidelines
Identifying existing practice guidelines on a topic can be a challenge. And, a current practice guideline may not exist for your specific topic.
To discover practice guidelines, consider using more general search terms (rather than a narrow search on your focused topic). Practice guidelines frequently cover broader topics, with guidance about specific aspects of the broader topic included within.
Here is a short video (~9 minutes) about finding clinical practice guidelines.
Listed below are recommended databases, along with database-specific search tips to help you identify practice guidelines.
- UpToDate This link opens in a new windowUpToDate is a point-of-care clinical medicine database, providing recommendations across 25 specialties. Integrates drug information (Lexidrug) and clinical images (VisualDx).
Licensed by UCD Health, access is available only to users with HS/Citrix credentials.
UpToDate Tip:
While UpToDate topics are not practice guidelines; many UpToDate topics cite practice guidelines and include a link to "Society Guidelines" toward the bottom of the left navigation column.
- ECRI Guidelines Trust This link opens in a new windowPublicly available web-based repository of objective, evidence-based clinical practice guideline content. Provide physicians, nurses, other clinical specialties, and members of the healthcare community with up-to-date clinical practices to advance safe and effective patient care. Includes evidence-based guidance developed by nationally and internationally recognized medical organizations and medical specialty societies.
- TRIP Database [Pro] This link opens in a new windowTRIP (Turning Research Into Practice) Database is a free clinical search engine with filters that enable clinicians to quickly find answers to clinical questions based on the best available evidence. The Library has licensed the professional version of TRIP with added features -- see Access VPN for off-campus access.
TRIP Database Tip:
Filter results by "guidelines" and possibly "clinical area"
- PubMed for UC Davis This link opens in a new windowPubMed is a subject index from the National Library of Medicine which includes over 30 million citations for biomedical literature from MEDLINE, life science journals, and e-books.
PubMed Tip:
- Although PubMed is freely available, access to many full-text articles is not.
- Use the special PubMed link for UC Davis, which enables "Get it at UC" links to display in search results
- U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) RecommendationsUSPSTF is an independent, volunteer panel of national experts in prevention and evidence-based medicine. The Task Force works to improve the health of people nationwide by making evidence-based recommendations about clinical preventive services such as screenings, counseling services, and preventive medications.
- AHRQ Evidence-Based Reports and Technical AssessmentsA free resource that provides complete titles of released evidence reports, comparative effectiveness reviews, technical briefs, Technology Assessment Program reports, and U.S. Preventive Services Task Force evidence syntheses.
- GIN International Guidelines Library & RegistryGuidelines International Network (GIN) is an organization dedicated to improving healthcare through evidence-based guidelines. GIN maintains an open-access library and registry for guidelines.
- Advanced Google SearchMany practice guidelines are posted on the websites of professional societies (e.g., AAP, ACP), non-profit organizations or government entities (e.g., CDC, WHO).
Google Tips:
- Include "guideline" in your search terms.
- Use Advanced Google Search techniques to narrow results by site: .gov or .org
- It is up to the user to determine the quality of information retrieved using Google.