Page 146 - Shared Guideline Development Experiences in Fertility Care

Chapter 7
4. What value do patients add to the development of guideline-based quality indicators for patient-centredness? (Chapter 6)
e involvement of patients in the development of guideline-based indicators had an added value. Patients mainly select di erent quality indicators than do professionals involved in fertility care. Within professionals’ and patients’ nal sets of 18 and 16 quality indicators, respectively, only 5 indicators were similar. Although both patients and professionals most prominently valued information and communication in fertility care, patients also emphasised the importance of access to care. Professionals emphasised the importance of coordination and integration of fertility care.
Discussion of main ndings
e studies performed within the span of this thesis revealed that ‘shared guideline development’ adds value to current guideline development programmes with scarce patient participation. Patients, professionals, guideline developers, and policy directors should act upon these gathered experiences and shi the role of patients from the periphery towards the centre of the guideline development process.
Box 1: Clinical Practice Guidelines
Clinical Practice Guidelines (CPGs) are now ubiquitous. Although CPGs have a relatively short history, the goals and development process have evolved dramatically. From the mid-1970s practice variation and the appropriateness of medical procedures have been questioned as a result of the evidence-based movement. Since then, guideline production has accelerated and the development has been increasingly centrally organized [1]. e increase in international publications within the eld of CPGs gives an indication of the rapid rise of their development. In 1993, the Medical Subject Heading (MeSH) ‘practice guideline’ was added to MEDLINE as a topic, and 444 articles were classi ed under that heading. In subsequent years, there has been an increase in the number of articles classi ed per year under the ‘practice guideline’s MeSH’, to a total of 90.922 articles in 2016 (www.pubmed.com). Of these published articles, 21.473 articles included the description of CPGs and yet a plethora of CPGs has been produced.
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