From guidelines to clinical practice in care for ischaemic stroke patients: A systematic review and expert opinion.

Background and purpose: Guidelines help physicians to provide optimal care for stroke patients, but implementation is challenging due to the quantity of recommendations. Therefore a practical overview related to applicability of recommendations can be of assistance.

Methods: A systematic review was performed on ischaemic stroke guidelines published in scientific journals, covering the whole acute care process for patients with ischaemic stroke. After data extraction, experts rated the recommendations on dimensions of applicability, that is, actionability, feasibility and validity, on a 9-point Likert scale. Agreement was defined as a score of ≥8 by ≥80% of the experts.

Results: Eighteen articles were identified and 48 recommendations were ultimately extracted. Papers were included only if they described the whole acute care process for patients with ischaemic stroke. Data extraction and analysis revealed variation in terms of both content and comprehensiveness of this description. Experts reached agreement on 34 of 48 (70.8%) recommendations in the dimension actionability, for 16 (33.3%) in feasibility and for 15 (31.3%) in validity. Agreement on all three dimensions was reached for seven (14.6%) recommendations: use of a stroke unit, exclusion of intracerebral haemorrhage as differential diagnosis, administration of intravenous thrombolysis, performance of electrocardiography/cardiac evaluation, non-invasive vascular examination, deep venous thrombosis prophylaxis and administration of statins if needed.

Discussion and conclusion: Substantial variation in agreement was revealed on the three dimensions of the applicability of recommendations. This overview can guide stroke physicians in improving the care process and removing barriers where implementation may be hampered by validity and feasibility.