Adherence of doctors to hypertension clinical guidelines in academy charity teaching hospital, Khartoum, Sudan

BACKGROUND: Clinical guidelines are systematically proven statements that help physicians to make healthcare decisions for specific medical conditions. Non-adherence to clinical guidelines is believed to contribute significantly to poor delivery of clinical care, and hence poor clinical outcomes. This study aimed at investigating adherence of doctors to hypertension clinical guidelines in Academy Charity Teaching Hospital, Khartoum, Sudan. METHODS: A cross-sectional hospital-based study was conducted during the period from January 2017 to October 2017 on a sample of 150 doctors. Adherence of doctors to hypertension guidelines was measured through the modified JNC7 adherence tool. Descriptive statistics was used to summarize the data (mean, standard deviation, median) and analyzed by frequency tables. Chi square test used to determine association among categorized variables. Logistic regression analysis was conducted to determine the relation between adherence to hypertension guidelines and the explanatory variables. All statistical tests were considered statistically significant when p value < 0.05. RESULTS: Of the 150 participants, 92% (138/150) were aware of the major hypertension treatment guidelines. 71% (98/138) reported the use of guidelines recommendations in their practice. Whereas 52% (78/150) were aware of local Sudanese guidelines. High adherence rate was highly statistically associated with job titles (p = 0.000), and also associated with age of the participants (p = 0.024) and duration of clinical experience (p = 0.012). However, the logistic regression analysis revealed despite all those variables were contributing to adherence to the treatment guidelines, only duration of clinical experience was statistically significant (p = 0.022). CONCLUSION: The overall adherence of doctors to hypertension treatment guidelines was very low. This study highlights how a gap in clinical governance contributes to low adherence to clinical guidelines. Establishing regular clinical audit, issuing regulations to enforce the use of updated guidelines, along with introducing training programs in hospitals and continuous assessment to the practicing doctors are suggested as crucial interventions. Considerable efforts to build clinical governance in Sudan are required.