• 1. Clinical Epidemiology Research Center, Peking University Third Hospital, Beijing 100191, P. R. China;
  • 2. School of Public Health, Peking University, Beijing 100191, P. R. China;
  • 3. School of Public Health, Harvard University, Massachusetts 02115, USA;
TAO Liyuan, Email: tendytly@163.com; ZHAN Siyan, Email: siyan-zhan@bjmu.edu.cn
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Objective  To review main obstacles to health care professionals adherence to clinical practice guidelines (CPGs) by employing the scoping review method and a determinants framework, and to explore the effect of implementation strategies in intervention researches on guideline adherence. Methods  The articles published from January 1, 2011 to June 10, 2023 were retrieved in PubMed, CINAHL, MEDLINE, Embase, Scopus, Cochrane Library, SinoMed, CNKI, and WanFang Data databases. The original literature on the CPGs implementation obstacles and strategies were included, and the primary and secondary screening of the literatures were completed by four researchers according to the inclusion and exclusion criteria. The basic characteristics of the literature, the factors affecting the implementation of the CPGs, and the strategies were extracted. The results were analyzed and summarized using qualitative and quantitative methods. Results  A total of 61 articles were included in the scoping review. The factors affecting the implementation of CPGs could be divided into five categories: guidelines themselves, external factors, internal factors, individual factors, and implementation process. The most common implementation obstacles were insufficient knowledge or skills of professionals regarding guidelines (n=21, 34.4%), insufficient necessity of using guidelines according to doctors (n=17, 27.9%), and unreasonable hospital factors (n=16, 26.2%). The factors that promoted the implementation of CPGs included guidelines based on high-quality evidence (n=5, 8.2%), good department or hospital culture (n=4, 6.6%), convenient accessibility of guideline knowledge and information (n=4, 6.6%), and doctors’ excellent professional ability (n=4, 6.6%). The overall effectiveness of the guideline implementation strategy was 50%. Clinical decision support system (CDSS) could improve the adherence of CPGs. Guideline education or training was one of the most commonly used methods, but the effect of improving guideline compliance was unstable. Conclusion  The main obstacles to the implementation of guidelines are insufficient ability and need of professionals for guidelines, poor hospital structure, and lack of resources. However, the obstacles are not absolute. It is recommended to use implementation strategies to improve the absorption and implementation of guidelines, among which CDSS is an effective measure to promote guideline adherence.