Richtlijngebruik door begeleiders: een kant-en-klaar recept?

The average organization for people with disabilities has 77 staff guidelines and protocols. This article describes these guidelines and protocols and how and for what purpose they are used. The results are based on a written and structured questionnaire, completed by 129 policy staff members and quality managers from 118 organizations (74% response rate). Guidelines on medication (provision), (reporting) incidents and the individual support plan are most important. Guidelines and protocols differ in the extent to which staff should strictly adhere to them. Guidelines and protocols are developed for quality improvement purposes, but also to clarify responsibilities and to provide guidance to staff in their work. Notably, staff is not always involved in the development of a guideline or protocol. The article ends with a number of key ingredients for responsible use of guidelines, including the development of a national guideline database. (aut.ref