Background The Netherlands Society of Occupational Medicine (NVAB) has a tradition of guideline development since 1999. The development of a typical monodisciplinary guideline for occupational physicians takes two years. In order to save time and costs the NVAB initiated an ADAPTE process for a monodisciplinary guideline on Obstructive Sleep Apnea Syndrome (OSAS).

Context OSAS is a major problem in the working population and may attribute to a substantial proportion of work related problems associated with fatigue. Examples are work accidents, work errors and productivity loss. Although a Dutch multidisciplinary guideline on OSAS exists, only a minority of the Dutch occupational physicians actually uses this guideline. To facilitate the implementation of the guideline, the NVAB provided a summary, a PowerPoint presentation, and medical case studies for occupational physicians. However, the guideline was still not implemented in clinical practice. Therefore the NVAB took the initiative to develop a monodisciplinary practice guideline for occupational physicians.

Description The ADAPTE process was used to develop a monodisciplinary practice guideline for occupational physicians based on a Dutch multidisciplinary guideline developed by CBO in 2009. The aim was to develop a monodisciplinary guideline in one year. In the end it took almost 3 years to adapt the guideline.

Lessons ADAPTE is a practical tool to adapt multidisciplinary guidelines into monodisciplinary practice guidelines. However, the use of the ADAPTE process does not guarantee time savings and reduction of development costs.