Personal and patient feelings affect how GPs apply clinical evidence

General practitioners' use of clinical evidence is affected by their knowledge of the patient and personal and professional experience. Freeman et al (p 1100) used Balint-style focus groups to examine why general practitioners do not always act on best evidence. Participants were asked to discuss cases in which they had knowingly not acted on the evidence. The discussions showed that doctors' decisions were complex. Evidence was viewed as a square peg that had to be made to fit the round hole of the patient. They also found that doctors influenced decisions by patients through the way in which they presented evidence.


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Relevant Article

Why general practitioners do not implement evidence: qualitative study
A C Freeman and K Sweeney
BMJ 2001 323: 1100. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

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