When you want to look up how to treat a disorder, use the broadest source that will work. I mean review articles, textbooks, and clinical practice guidelines. We usually don’t have the time or the need to read and interpret dozens of original research articles!
What are Clinical Practice Guidelines?
- Systematically developed statements about clinical practice
- Intended to guide decisions in specific clinical circumstances
- Ideally, they incorporate input from experts, clinicians, and patients
- The developers of the guidelines carefully consider the evidence and base their recommendations on this deliberation
Note: Clinical Practice Guidelines are sometimes called something else, e.g., “Practice Parameters,” or “Good Psychiatric Practice.”
Where to find Clinical Practice Guidelines
I have found that most mental health clinicians don’t know that several mental health professional organizations provide clinical practice guidelines AT NO COST! Not all the available guidelines are relevant to each clinician, but all of us can find some that are directly relevant to our practices.
Selected practice guidelines from major organizations are listed for each disorder on the pages linked to below. Whenever possible, direct links to the guidelines themselves are also provided.
Note: We don’t have to start reading all these guidelines today! 🙂 We just need to know that they exist and to know where to find them when we need them.
Tips on how to use practice guidelines
Practice guidelines for attention-deficit/ hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)
Practice guidelines for autism spectrum disorder
Practice guidelines for bipolar disorders
Practice guidelines for delirium
Practice guidelines for dementias
Practice guidelines for depressive disorders
Practice guidelines for obsessive-compulsive disorders (OCD)
Practice guidelines for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
Practice guidelines for schizophrenia
Practice guidelines for substance-related and addictive disorders
Practice guidelines for suicidality and self-harm
This page was last modified in January 2020
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