Knowledge, Practice, and Adherence of Alexandria Chest Physicians to the Global Initiative for Asthma (GINA) Guidelines
Background: Despite the development and dissemination of guidelines for the diagnosis and management of asthma, a gap remains between current recommendations and actual practice. Objectives: To assess the physicians’ knowledge, practice and adherence to The Global Initiative for Asthma (GINA) gui...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Alexandria University
2011-03-01
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| Series: | Journal of High Institute of Public Health |
| Subjects: |
| Summary: | Background: Despite the development and dissemination of guidelines for the diagnosis and
management of asthma, a gap remains between current recommendations and actual practice.
Objectives: To assess the physicians’ knowledge, practice and adherence to The Global Initiative
for Asthma (GINA) guidelines before and after dissemination of guidelines and to identify causes of
non adherence to these guidelines. Materials and Methods: A pretest-posttest design was used to
evaluate GINA guidelines dissemination intervention. The study included all chest physician
categories working in all chest hospitals in Alexandria. Total sample size included sixty chest
physicians. An interview questionnaire was designed to collect data related to knowledge and
practices of physicians in diagnosis and management of bronchial asthma and to their agreement
with GINA guidelines and barriers to implementation of the guidelines. In addition, seven different
case scenarios were used to assess the ability of the respondents to classify control and
management of asthma. Results: Poor practice (70%) was more marked than poor knowledge
(45%) before guidelines dissemination. After guidelines dissemination, poor practice was still high
(41.7%) while poor knowledge Fell to zero. Written asthma plan was used poorly by the studied
physicians before as well as after guideline dissemination (3.3% and 16.7%, respectively). The
reasons for non adherence of chest physicians to asthma guidelines were namely; lack of agreement
with specific guidelines (26%); external barriers including lack of time, equipment or clinical space,
educational materials staff support and reimbursement for services (25.6%) and poor patients’
adherence to asthma guidelines (16.4%). Conclusion and Recommendations: Even though,
Alexandria chest physicians, had improvement in their level of knowledge after GINA guidelines
dissemination yet, their practice and adherence to asthma guidelines was still low. To overcome
barriers of physicians' non adherence, educational programs and strategies are needed to ensure
actual dissemination and implementation of the guidelines. |
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| ISSN: | 2357-0601 2357-061X |