Clinical Practice Guidelines are a great source of information for finding what the current “best practices” are for diagnosing, screening, preventing, managing and treating a wide variety of health conditions. However, not all guidelines are created equal! In the past, guidelines were often developed by a consensus of “experts” in the field. More recently there has been a movement to evaluate and summarize the findings from the best clinical and research studies to form evidence-based recommendations.
The National Guideline Clearinghouse (search: guideline.gov) is one excellent source for evidence-based clinical practice guidelines. The NGC is a U.S. government initiative of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). You can easily search the site for specific recommendations from a variety of Agencies, browse by Organization or Topic or select “Guideline Syntheses” from the left-side to see a nice clear summary of two different guidelines being compared head to head.
The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force is another trusted source for reliable practice guidelines. Again, the USPSTF produces guidelines that are evidence-based and their recommendations come with a letter designation (A, B, C, or D) that grades the strength of evidence and the balance of harms to benefits. You can locate topics from a A-Z list or focus on specific recommendations in clinical categories for children versus adults.
**Links to these resources and more can be found from the Medical Student Library Portal under the category “Best Evidence”.
