Australian consumers and community members views about the currency of clinical practice guidelines

Clinical practice guidelines provide evidence-based recommendations to inform healthcare decision making and optimise patient care. They are primarily designed for, and used by, clinicians. Clinical practice guidelines development is resource- and time-intensive. As a result, most guidelines are only updated every 5-10 years, or even longer. In some clinical areas, for example where new research is emerging, guidelines can become rapidly out of date, meaning the care they recommend may be outdated, and at risk of doing harm. In this project, we would like to understand Australian healthcare consumers and community members (i.e. people with lived experience of a healthcare condition, patients, carers and family members) expectations about the currency of Australian clinical practice guidelines. The approach is likely to include qualitative online surveys and interviews. The project will have real-world application, with the results directly informing ALEC’s national advocacy for living guidelines. The Australian Living Evidence Collaboration, within Cochrane Australia, School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, is a world-first initiative that brings together leading experts in evidence synthesis, guideline development and digital technologies to build a next generation system for delivering reliable, accessible, up-to-date evidence in health. You will be supervised by experienced and supportive researchers from ALEC, and welcomed into the ALEC team.