Perceived barriers to guidelines in peritoneal dialysis

• Published in: Nephrology, dialysis, transplantation dialysis, transplantation, 2011-05, Vol.26 (5), p.1683-1689
• Main Authors: ALLEN, Nathan, SCHWARTZ, Daniel, SOOD, Amy R, MENDELSSOHN, David, VERRELLI, Mauro, TANNA, Gemini, SCHIFF, Jeff, KOMENDA, Paul, RIGATTO, Claudio, SOOD, Manish M
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Anesthesia. Intensive care medicine. Transfusions. Cell therapy and gene therapy; Attitude of Health Personnel; Biological and medical sciences; Emergency and intensive care: renal failure. Dialysis management; Evidence-Based Medicine - statistics & numerical data; Guideline Adherence - statistics & numerical data; Humans; Intensive care medicine; Kidney Failure, Chronic - therapy; Medical sciences; Peritoneal Dialysis; Practice Guidelines as Topic; Practice Patterns, Physicians' - statistics & numerical data; Prognosis; Quality of Health Care; Surgery (general aspects). Transplantations, organ and tissue grafts. Graft diseases; Surgery of the urinary system
• ISSN: 0931-0509; 1460-2385
• DOI: 10.1093/ndt/gfq623

Little is known regarding barriers to guideline adherence in the nephrology community. We set out to identify perceived barriers to evidence-based medicine (EBM) and measurement of continuous quality indicators (CQI) in an international cohort of peritoneal dialysis (PD) practitioners. Subscribers to an online nephrology education site (Nephrology Now) were invited to participate in an online survey. Nephrology Now is a non-profit, monthly mailing list that highlights clinically relevant articles in nephrology. Four hundred and seventy-five physicians supplying PD care participated in an online survey assessing their use of EBM and CQI in their PD practice. Ordinal logistic regression was utilized to determine relationships between baseline characteristics and EBM and CQI practices. The majority of physicians were nephrologists (89.7%), and 50.4% worked in an academic centre. Respondents were from the following geographic regions: 13.5% Canadian, 24% American, 23.8% European, 4.4% Australian, 5.3% South American, 10.7% African and 12.2% Asian. Adherence to PD clinical practice guidelines were generally strong; however, lower adherence was associated with countries with lower healthcare expenditure, not using personal digital assistant (PDA), the longer the physician had been practising and smaller (