What factors influence the use of cardiac risk scoring instruments by health care practitioners in the management of unstable angina and NSTEMI?
Intrinsic motivation rather than forced compliance drives the effective clinical use of cardiac risk scores in the management of patients with unstable angina and NSTEMI.
Health care practitioners disagree on the value of cardiac risk scores for clinical practice. Practitioners driven by intrinsic motivations predominantly experienced benefits in policy-making, education and research. Practitioners who were forced to use cardiac risk scores were less likely to take into account the risk score in their treatment decisions. The results of this study can be used to develop strategies that stimulate or sustain cardiac risk score use in practice, while taking into account barriers that affect cardiac risk score use, and possibly reduce practice variation in the management of unstable angina and non-ST-elevation myocardial infarction patients.
Engel et al. (Mon,) studied this question.