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Background: International guidelines recommend health care professionals to use supportive tools like questionnaires when assessing cancer patients' needs. Little is known about GPs' perspectives and experience in this regard., Objective: To examine how GPs experience to involve a short questionnaire, completed by patients' prior to a consultation, when addressing the patients' problems and needs. The aim is to contribute to the knowledge concerning the use of questionnaires as part of clinical cancer care in general practice., Methods: Semi-structured individual interviews with 11 GPs in the Region of Southern Denmark purposefully sampled with regard to gender, years working in general practice and practice form. Interviews were analyzed using systematic text condensation., Results: Most GPs found that using the questionnaire provided a supportive structure to the consultation. The questionnaire helped to bring forward issues of importance to the patients, which might otherwise not have been mentioned and enhanced a patient-centered approach. A few GPs found the use of the questionnaire to be restraining, detracting focus from the patient and impede usual practice., Conclusions: This study shows that using questionnaires may have the potential to improve clinical cancer care in general practice in relation to needs assessment of cancer patients and the results support current recommendations., (© The Author 2016. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.)

Background: Clinical guidelines are considered to be essential for improving quality and safety of health care. However, interventions to promote implementation of guidelines have demonstrated only partial effectiveness and the reasons for this apparent failure are not yet fully understood., Objective: To investigate how GPs implement clinical guidelines in everyday clinical practice and how implementation approaches differ between practices., Methods: Individual semi-structured open-ended interviews with seven GPs who were purposefully sampled with regard to gender, age and practice form. Interviews were recorded, transcribed verbatim and then analysed using systematic text condensation., Results: Analysis of the interviews revealed three different approaches to the implementation of guidelines in clinical practice. In some practices the GPs prioritized time and resources on collective implementation activities and organized their everyday practice to support these activities. In other practices GPs discussed guidelines collectively but left the application up to the individual GP whilst others again saw no need for discussion or collective activities depending entirely on the individual GP's decision on whether and how to manage implementation., Conclusion: Approaches to implementation of clinical guidelines vary substantially between practices. Supporting activities should take this into account., (© The Author 2015. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.)