Making sense of clinical guidelines

McClarey, Mary RGN, SCM, Cert HV, BA
Duff, Lesley RGN, BSc, MA

Date of acceptance: August 6 1997.
Mary McClarey RGN, SCM, Cert HV, BA, is Research and Development Officer (Clinical Effectiveness), RCN DQI Programme, RCN Institute, Oxford. Lesley Duff RGN, BSc, MA, is Research and Development Officer, RCN DQI Programme, RCN Institute, London.
This article has been subject to double-blind review.

Nursing Standard 12(1):p 34-36, September 24, 1997.

In a companion article to their paper on clinical effectiveness (McClarey and Duff 1997) , the authors discuss the issues surrounding clinical guidelines.How they are developed and how they can be adapted to local practice are described to allow practitioners to base their practice on the most up-to-date research evidence.