Impact of guideline awareness on the counseling of patients with acute cough among general practitioners and pharmacy personnel

OBJECTIVE: To explore the awareness and knowledge of applicable guidelines on acute cough among general practitioners, pharmacists and pharmacy technicians and to compare their recommendation behavior and clinical decision making to the evidence-based recommendation in the applicable guidelines. METHODS: An anonymous online survey was performed among 303 members of an existing panel of healthcare professionals (HCPs). They were presented with a hypothetical case vignette representative of their daily practice and asked for their treatment recommendations. After being shown an excerpt from the applicable guidelines, these questions were repeated. RESULTS: Forty-six % of participants reported to seek information on cough and respiratory conditions very often or often. Among 12 non-prescription treatments-commonly used over-the-counter-products for acute cough, HCPs most often recommended various plant extract-based products (phytotherapeutic remedies) for the acute cough case, whereas chemically defined options such as ambroxol or N-acetyl-cysteine were recommended less often. Following presentation of the guidelines excerpt, recommendations of the phytotherapeutic remedies decreased moderately whereas that of the guideline-recommended ambroxol more than doubled. Among stated reasons for the recommendation guideline conformity increased from 5% to 35% among the top-3 reasons. CONCLUSIONS: The recommendations for the treatment of acute cough by professionals involved in primary healthcare deviated considerably from the applicable guideline recommendation but changed after presentation of a guidelines excerpt and knowledge thereof. We conclude that dissemination of applicable guideline knowledge is relevant to improve evidence-based healthcare and clinical decision making.