Objective: To assess the physicians' use of clinical practice guidelines (CPG) for gastrointestinal oncology.
Method: Quantitative study with semistructured individual interviews of 17 physicians treating patients with gastrointestinal cancer in the Rhone district of France.
Results: The interviews identified 7 major themes: issues associated with development of the CPG; their usefulness in the physician-patient relationship; their ease of application; relevance of the specific topic; the procedures used for their development; the methods for disseminating them; and monitoring of their impact.
Conclusion: The physicians were relatively favorable to the CPG but stressed the need for greater transparency about related issues and effects, economic and legal, in particular, for dissemination through multiple and novel communication tools, and for assessment of their impact.