Implementation Evaluation of Clinical Practice Guidelines for Integrative Medicine

To systematically assess the applicability of the clinical practice guidelines (CPGs) integrating Chinese and western medicine, thereby providing reference for enhancing their future usability.

PubMed, Web of Science, Embase, SinoMed, WanFang Data, and CNKI databases were searched for guidelines for the integration of Chinese and western medicine. Supplementary searches of Chinese Medical Association, Chinese Medicine Administration, MedSci websites, Website of China Association of Chinese Medicine, Medlive, Website of Dangdang, Chinese Association of Integrative Medicine and World Federation of Traditional Chinese Medicine Societies were conducted. The search time frame was from inception of the databases to December 31, 2022. Four reviewers independently evaluated the implementability of clinical practice guidelines by using "Clinical Practice Guideline (CPG) implementation evaluation tool".

A total of 61 integrative Chinese and western medicine guidelines were included. Of the guidelines assessed, 9 guidelines(14.75%) exhibited strong implementability, 40(65.57%) demonstrated average implementability, and 12 (19.67%) demonstrated poor implementability. Among the 5 domains, the dimensions of "accessibility" and "implementability" were found to be of high quality, while those of "communication", "ease of identification" and "applicability" were relatively poor. Notably, compared to guidelines published between 2006—2016, those published between 2017—2022 showed improvements in the areas of "identification" and "application".

The implementabilityof the existing clinical practice guidelines of the integrative Chinese and western medicine is average and needs to be improved. In the future, emphasis should be placed on the integration of medical education and research, publicity of the guidelines, continuous medical education and training, a more concise form of recommendations, application of the guidelines by clinicians, and the implementability of the integrative Chinese and western medicine guideline.