Perceptions of health care professionals towards clinical practice guidelines: The case of Diabetes Mellitus in Saudi Arabia

Background Clinical practice guidelines are developed by healthcare policy makers and disseminated to practitioners in order to minimize practice variations and to improve the quality of care. Problems arise when there is a sole reliance on passive dissemination strategies such as mailing or publishing the guidelines, as these approaches do not usually lead to the adoption. Objective This study aims to explore the perspectives of the health care professionals toward the Saudi National Diabetes Guidelines in terms of awareness, adherence and their preferred dissemination and implementation strategies of the guideline. Method A cross-sectional survey was conducted among physicians and nurses working in twenty primary health care centers in the city of Riyadh between February and March 2019. Results Nearly half of the total 179 respondents reported that they were unaware of the guidelines (49.1%), and 92% of the remaining 91 participants who were aware of the guideline reported that they had first heard about it through their official mail. The mean scores ranked according to the most preferred methods for disseminating and implementing the diabetes guidelines were as follows: via reminder systems 4.35 ± 0.74, financial incentives 4.33 ± 0.65, and audit and feedback 4.27 ± 0.58. On the other hand, the least favorable strategies were traditional education 3.79 ± 0.96 and the distribution of the guideline by mail 3.13 ± 0.95. Conclusion The level of awareness of the diabetes guidelines among the primary health care professionals was suboptimal. This was more likely due to the Ministry of Health’s reliance on passive implementation strategies. In order to have the guidelines translated into clinical practice, active and targeted implementation strategies such as reminder systems, audit and feedback must be considered by the Saudi health policy makers.