Could NICE anxiety guidelines be made more user friendly?

doi:10.1136/bmj.b653

Published 17 February 2009, doi:10.1136/bmj.b653
Cite this as: BMJ 2009;338:b653

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Could NICE anxiety guidelines be made more user friendly?

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

We recently audited the implementation of guidelines from theNational Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE)¹on depression and anxiety disorders.² ³ ⁴ ⁵ We were struck byhow complicated it was to implement the guidelines for anxietydisorders. For depression, we only had to consult one document,²but for anxiety disorders, we had to consult three separatedocuments on anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorders, and post-traumaticstress disorder.³ ⁴ ⁵ And they all say slightly different things.

We recognise that NICE has developed three sets of guidelinesfor these disorders because they are diagnostically distinct.However, this creates difficulties for the NHS, where non-specialistsdealing with several different problem areas have to implementthe guidelines.

To navigate a way through these guidelines requires a diagnosis.General practitioners mainly refer clients with anxiety disordersand are therefore crucial in implementing the stepped care model.However, diagnosing the different disorders (including severity)requires a lot more time . . . [Full text of this article]

Louisa A Rhodes, research worker¹, June S L Brown, lecturer¹

¹ Institute of Psychiatry, Department of Psychology (PO77), London SE5 8AF

louisa.rhodes@iop.kcl.ac.uk