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 from the PubMed, CINAHL, MEDLINE, Embase, Scopus, Cochrane Library, SinoMed, CNKI, WanFang Data and VIP databases. The original literature on the CPGs implementation obstacles and strategies was included, and the primary and secondary screening of the literature 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 used 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 factors within hospital (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 primary challenges in implementing guidelines include inadequate professional capacity and demand, suboptimal hospital infrastructure and limited 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 for promoting guideline adherence.
ObjectiveThe purpose of this study was to translate the U-CEP scale into Chinese, and evaluate the reliability and validity of the Chinese version of the U-CEP, in order to provide a measurement and evaluation tool for clinical epidemiology education and research. MethodsThe U-CEP scale was translated and adapted using the Brislin translation model. A nationwide survey of clinicians was conducted using the Chinese version of the U-CEP. Item analysis, reliability analysis, and validity analysis were performed using SPSS 26.0 software. ResultsThe discriminant validity analysis showed that except for item 4, the critical value (CR) of the other twenty-four items differed significantly between high and low groups (P<0.01), with CR values ranging from 2.902 to 14.609. The ITCs of the 25 items were all positive, with 5 items having an ITC<0.15(20%), 2 items having ITC≥0.15~0.20 (8%), 6 items having ITC≥0.20~0.40 (24%) and 12 items having ITC≥0.40 (48%). In terms of reliability, the overall Cronbach’s α coefficient of the Chinese version of the U-CEP was 0.80, with Cronbach’s α coefficient ranging from 0.752 to 0.805 when deleting each item one by one. The test-retest reliability was 0.848 (P<0.001). The alternative-form reliability was 0.838 (P<0.001). In terms of validity, expert analysis showed that the content validity of the Chinese version of the U-CEP was good. The construct validity analysis showed that the cumulative contribution rate of the 25 items was 57.50%. No respondent scored full marks or zero marks, indicating that no ceiling or floor effects were found. There were statistically significant differences in the total scores among clinicians with different educational backgrounds or with or without systematic learning of relevant knowledge (P<0.05). ConclusionThe Chinese version of the U-CEP has good reliability and validity, as well as good cultural adaptability. It can effectively assess a physician's knowledge of clinical epidemiology.