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APA guide · Sources nurses cite

Citing a clinical practice guideline

Most clinical practice guidelines are published as reports or webpages, so you cite them like a report, usually with a group author. Here is the pattern, the mistakes that cost marks, and a question to check yourself.

The pattern

Author. (Year). Title of the guideline in sentence case (Report number, if given). Website Name. URL

  • Committee or agency as author
  • Year of the update, if updated
  • Title in italic sentence case
  • Website name left out when it matches the author
  • 0.5-in. hanging indent

Use the committee or agency that developed the guideline as the author when no individual authors are credited.

If the title page credits both a committee and an agency, the committee is the author and the agency goes where the website name would.

If you're citing an updated guideline, use the year of the update.

Right and wrong, side by side

Correct

National Institute for Health and Care Excellence. (2019). Hypertension in adults: Diagnosis and management (NICE Guideline NG136). https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ng136

The website name is left out because it's the same as the author.

Needs fixing

National Institute for Health and Care Excellence. (2019). Hypertension In Adults: Diagnosis And Management. National Institute for Health and Care Excellence. Retrieved from https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ng136

The title isn't italic or in sentence case, the report number is missing, and the website name repeats the author. "Retrieved from" belongs only with a retrieval date, for pages that change and aren't archived.

In the text

Parenthetical

(National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, 2019)

Narrative

National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (2019)

You may abbreviate a well-known group name if you use it often. Give the full name the first time, then use the abbreviation:

  • First parenthetical citation: (National Institute for Health and Care Excellence [NICE], 2019)
  • First narrative citation: National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE, 2019)
  • After that: (NICE, 2019)

In the reference list, always spell the group name out in full.

If the guideline appears in a journal, as recent issues of Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report do, follow the journal article format instead.

Check yourself

A guideline's author and the website it came from have the same name. What goes in the website name position?

  • The name again
  • Nothing. Leave it out.
  • The website's domain, such as nice.org.uk
Show the answer

Nothing. Leave it out. APA Style says to omit the site name when it's the same as the author, to avoid repetition.