LibGuides: Nursing Resources: Clinical Practice Guidelines

What is a Clinical Practice Guideline?

Clinical Practice Guidelines (CPGs) summarize information on a medical topic and make recommendations for clinical practice. These are written for medical professionals to help ensure that patients receive the best care available based on the current evidence. Clinical Practice Guidelines are generally written by a committee and are sponsored by a professional association.

"Clinical practice guidelines are statements that include recommendations intended to optimize patient care that are informed by a systematic review of evidence and an assessment of the benefits and harms of alternative care options. Rather than dictating a one-size-fits-all approach to patient care, clinical practice guidelines offer an evaluation of the quality of the relevant scientific literature, and an assessment of the likely benefits and harms of a particular treatment."

https://www.aafp.org/family-physician/patient-care/clinical-recommendations/cpg-manual.html

Clinical Practice Guidelines are evidence based and generally follow a systematic procedure for collecting and reviewing information that is used to develop the guideline. You can read more about CPGs here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK390308/

Finding Clinical Practice Guidelines

Foley Resources

CINAHL: Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health (EBSCO) This link opens in a new window
To find guidelines, try either adding a keyword (such as "guideline") or a Subject Heading (MH "Qualitative Studies+") to your search. You can also try using a filter; in the Search Options section, click on the "Practice Guidelines" filter under Publication Type.

Finding Guidelines in CINAHL

ClinicalKey for Nursing This link opens in a new window
To find guidelines, you can click on the Guidelines button on the front page and browse, or use the search box to search for a topic and then select the guidelines filter.
DynaMed This link opens in a new window
To find guidelines, search for the "Condition" record for a topic, and then scroll down to the "Guidelines and Resources" section.

JAMA Network: Guidelines
Explore the latest clinical guidelines, including US Preventive Services Task Force recommendations and synopses of specialty society guidelines.

MEDLINE (EBSCO) This link opens in a new window
To find guidelines, try either adding a keyword (such as "guideline") to your search, or use a filter. In the Search Options section, click on the "Practice Guidelines" filter under Publication Type.
PsychiatryOnline This link opens in a new window
Includes a library of APA Practice Guidelines, which can be found under the "APA Guidelines" tab.
PubMed This link opens in a new window
To find guidelines, try either adding a keyword (such as "guideline") to your search, or use a filter. Under Publication Type, click on the "Guidelines" filter.

Finding Guidelines in PubMed

Family Practice Guidelines by Cash, Jill; Glass, Cheryl
ISBN: 9780826135841
Publication Date: 2021
This bible of family practice for primary care students and clinicians provides current national practice guidelines for professional standards of care across the lifespan.

Other CPG Resources

Accelerating Change Transformation Team (ACTT)
Guidelines from the Alberta Medical Association
AHRQ Guidelines
Guidelines recommended by the Agency for Healthcare Research & Quality
CPG Infobase
This database contains approximately 1,200 evidence-based Canadian clinical practice guidelines (CPGs) developed or endorsed by authoritative medical or health organizations in Canada.
ECRI Guidelines Trust™
ECRI Guidelines Trust™ is "a publicly available repository of clinical guidelines, in response to the defunding of the National Guideline Clearinghouse by the federal government."
International Guideline Library
G-I-N’s mission is to lead, strengthen and support collaboration in guideline development, adaptation and implementation.
National Institutes of Health (NIH)
Trip Database - Clinical Search Engine
Search engine designed to help clinicians find evidence based information on the web. Sign up for a free account for additional services. Nursing students - look for the Search Wizard link at the bottom of the page for help with PICO research.
US Preventative Services Task Force
Includes a searchable database, with the ability to filter by type of intervention, age, sex, recommendation grade, and type of condition.
VA/DoD Clinical Practice Guidelines
VHA, in collaborations with the Department of Defense (DoD) and other leading professional organizations, has been developing clinical practice guidelines since the early 1990s.
WHO Guidelines
Guidelines from the World Health Organization