The implementation of clinical practice guidelines (CPGs) has been shown to positively impact clinical care. For example, the implementation of community-acquired pneumonia guidelines has decreased mortality 1 and improved cost effectiveness of care 2 without adverse patient consequences 3. Diabetes care employing evidence-based guidelines 4 reduced diabetic nephropathy, retinopathy, and autonomic neuropathy. Improved survival in women with node-negative breast cancer has been associated with compliance with guidelines for systemic adjuvant treatment 5. Use of guidelines for the management of presumed uncomplicated urinary tract infection in women has decreased laboratory utilization and overall costs while maintaining or improving the quality of care 6.

On the post graduate medical education level, teaching the content of CPGs can help in achieving three of the six general competencies defined by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) in the United States (US) 7: patient care, medical knowledge, and practice-based learning and improvement 8. It is also assumed that such teaching will help trainees to adhere to CPGs when they become independent practitioners.

In spite of their clinical and educational values, the implementation of CPGs remains suboptimal among family medicine and internal medicine trainees in the US for a number of clinical areas such as: management of hypertension 9; management of hypercholesterolemia 10; diagnosis and management of uncomplicated urinary tract infection 11; screening and management of chronic kidney disease and its associated co-morbidities 12; and screening for familial colorectal cancer 13.

One of the potential explanations for the suboptimal implementation of CPGs is suboptimal teaching of CPGs in residency programs. The main objective of this study was to determine the characteristics of curricula for teaching the content of CPGs in family medicine and internal medicine residency programs in the US. We also wanted to explore the hypothesis that a lower percentage of international medical graduates would be associated with better characteristics of teaching CPGs. It was not our objective to study either informal teaching (i.e., outside the curriculum, e.g., bedside teaching) or teaching of guidelines' development or guidelines' integration in medical decision making.

The survey overall response rate was 52% (434 out of 839; 52% and 51% of family medicine and of internal medicine program directors responding, respectively). Table 1 lists the characteristics of the training programs combined and separately for the two specialties.

Table 2 presents the answers of responding program directors relating to questions about teaching of CPGs combined and separately for the two specialties.

We conducted a survey of family medicine and internal medicine residency programs to determine how family medicine and internal medicine residency programs in the US teach the content of CPGs to their residents. Fourteen percent of program directors reported having written goals and objectives related to CPGs. The most frequently taught aspect of CPGs was the content of specific CPGs (76%). Educational activities were predominantly didactic in nature (76%). Auditing for adherence by residents was the primary evaluation strategy (44%), while 36% of program directors reported conducting no evaluation. Programs made texts of CPGs available to residents most frequently in the form of paper copies (54%), while the most important barrier was time constraints on faculty (56%).

This study has two main strengths. First, the survey questionnaire was rigorously designed, pretested, and is based on the EPOC review group typology of implementation strategies and ACGME definition of curriculum. Second, and to our knowledge, this is the first survey attempting to describe the teaching of the content of CPGs in both family medicine and internal medicine residency programs.

The main limitation of this study is the potential for selection bias with a response rate of 52%. This response rate, however, is consistent with the mean response rate of 54% to surveys of physicians published in medical journals 18. On the other hand, surveys of pediatricians were found to be very consistent in showing only small amounts of response bias regardless of the response rate 20. If selection bias existed, it is likely that teaching of the content of CPGs in the programs of responding directors would be of higher quality than in those of non-responding directors. This implies that our results could reflect an optimistic characterization of teaching of the content of CPGs in general, emphasizing the need for improvement. Another important limitation is that the study did not address important aspects of training in CPGs such as bedside teaching (i.e., in concert with the care of individual patients) and integrating guidelines in medical decision making. These are however more challenging research questions that would require different study designs and different target populations to address them. In addition, the questionnaire was not detailed enough to capture details of the educational strategies (e.g., type of auditing); however, this was intended to keep the questionnaire relatively short and increase response rate.

If teaching of the content of CPGs is considered an important part of the curriculum, programs will need to develop relevant goals and objectives. Goals and objectives offer a general focus, clarify expectations for learning and attainment, and relate them to residents' clinical and didactic activities 21. Goals and objectives are also important for any evaluation process because outcomes are results providing evidence that goals and objectives have been accomplished 21. We believe that such goals and objectives should cover basic skills, such as searching for and critically appraising CPGs, and more advanced skills, such as integrating CPGs in medical decision making, particularly those decisions that are sensitive to patients' values and preferences and for which guideline implementation is not equivalent to 100% adherence.

It is encouraging that the majority of programs teach the content of specific guidelines. The challenge remains however with the teaching strategy. The effectiveness of the top two strategies used by the majority of programs (i.e., didactic sessions and journal clubs) is not supported by research evidence. A systematic review assessing the effectiveness of didactic sessions concluded that they are unlikely to change professional practice 22. A review of the literature about the use of journal clubs identified no studies assessing their impact on adherence to CPGs 23.

On the other hand, the effectiveness of two teaching strategies used by a minority of programs (i.e., interactive sessions and audit and feedback) is supported by high quality research evidence. A systematic review assessing the effectiveness of interactive workshops concluded that they can result in moderately large changes 22. Another systematic review found that audit and feedback can be effective in improving professional practice 24. The effects are small to moderate, but likely to be greater when baseline adherence to recommended practice is low and when feedback is delivered more intensively 24. Furthermore, the improved compliance may be generalizable to recommended practices not directly targeted for audit25

The time constraints on faculty being the most reported barrier to teaching of the content of CPGs, potential solutions include integrated approaches to evidence-based practice and teaching 26, resident-led small-group teaching 27, online tutorials 28, and educational games 29. The effectiveness of some of these strategies remains to be proven. While the limited availability of CPGs was found in the past to be a barrier to the use of CPGs 30, the findings of this survey shows an improvement in guidelines accessibility in both paper or electronic forms, as also suggested by a recent survey of family medicine residency directors 31.

A number of reported characteristics of the teaching of CPGs were better for family medicine than for internal medicine residency programs (e.g., identifying and locating CPGs) and vice versa (e.g., conducting objective assessment of knowledge). However, the overall results are similar for the two specialties. The challenges are thus not unique to one of the two disciplines highlighting the need for collaborative efforts. We had hypothesized that a lower percentage of international medical graduates would be associated with better characteristics of teaching CPGs; although some of the associations were statistically significant, they were not consistent enough to support our hypothesis.

The findings of this study have important implications for graduate medical education. Taking into account competing demands and requirements, program directors need to consider the value of teaching of the content of CPGs on the clinical care and educational levels (evidence-based medicine user model 32). The teaching of the content of CPGs can benefit from adherence to the ACGME guidelines for curricular design. A particular attention should be given to the educational strategies used given their varying effectiveness.

The findings have also important implications for research. Time constraints on faculty being the major barriers, research should evaluate the effectiveness of innovative strategies that may consume less faculty time, such as online tutorials 28, case-based on-line learning 33, and educational games 29. An additional challenge is to identify ways to facilitate incorporation of CPGs into decision making rather than simple conformance 8. Future research should also investigate in other educational setting, the interesting association between the female gender and the higher number of years as program director with positive curricular characteristics. However, the major question to explore remains whether teaching of the content of CPGs in residency influences future practice behavior of physicians, particularly integrating CPGs in decision making in a manner that is consistent with the individual patient values and preferences.

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Authors contributions: conception and design: EAA, RM, MCW, AM, and HJS; acquisition of data: EAA, RM, AS, MCW, AM, and TR; analysis and interpretation of data: EAA, GHG, and HJS; drafting of manuscript: EAA; critical revision of the manuscript for important intellectual content: EAA, RM, AS, MCW, AM, TR, GHG, and HJS; obtaining of funding: EAA, RM, and HJS.