Discussion
There appears to be a yawning chasm between the pervasive reverence of guidelines in schizophrenia and the wafer-thin evidence that actually establishes them as effective in improving care.
This is interesting.
Considerable doubt remains about how best to implement guidelines in mental health practice
Considerable doubt remains about how best to implement guidelines in mental health practice
It’s easy to assume that applying guidelines, which endorse treatments shown to be efficacious by research, would be of benefit to patients. But the translation of interventions from the sterile, tightly-bound world of science to the busy, downtrodden local clinic – via the agenda-laden land of guideline production – is not seamless.
The patients are different – there are no exclusion criteria in real life.
The staff are different – they aren’t singled minded research experts.
The interventions are different – squeezed into care, jostling with endless other tasks.
So are guidelines still worth following if they’ve not been backed up by evidence of benefit in real-world implementation?
You tell me.