PhD student: Melissa Duran
Title: Implementation of clinical practice guidelines in general practice.
Supervisors: Pr Isabelle Boutron (MD, PhD) and Dr Stephanie Sidorkiewicz (MD, PhD)
Doctoral school: ED 393 Epidemiology and Biomedical Information Sciences, Université Paris Cité
Promotion: 2024
Funding: grant “Année médaille 2024” (Assistance Publique Hopitaux de Paris)
Thesis abstract
Evidence-based medicine is built on the premise that clinical decisions should be informed by the best available evidence. However, applying this principle in everyday practice is far from straightforward. With the ever-increasing body of evidence and the complexity of synthesizing and interpreting data, clinical practice guidelines have emerged as critical tools, translating evidence into actionable recommendations for physicians.
General practice, with its broad scope and longitudinal, patient-centered, and front-line approach, presents unique challenges and opportunities in the implementation of clinical practice guidelines. General practitioners commonly manage diverse and undifferentiated conditions within the constraints of limited consultation time. Balancing standardized recommendations with the specific needs of individual patients in this context can be particularly challenging.
In this context, despite the critical role of guidelines in promoting improved patient outcomes (for example, by mitigating the risk of delayed diagnosis, overdiagnosis, overtreatment, and iatrogenic harm), their implementation in clinical practice remains suboptimal. This thesis therefore aims to explore how general practitioners translate evidence-based recommendations into practice.
