Efforts to produce high quality clinical practice guidelines (CPG) must be accompanied by implementation strategies aimed at eliminating specific barriers. With this study, we seek to identify the perceptions of the users of the CPG for the rehabilitation and care of individuals with lower limb amputation on the factors that facilitate or hinder its implementation.

A qualitative design was used. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with patients, health service providers and administrators of medium and high complexity organizations of the health system in Colombia. The transcribed interviews were coded to identify emerging categories based on the empirical findings. These were compared and complemented with the theoretical categories that resulted from the review of the literature.

In the analysis of the 38 interviews the perceived barriers were: Categories related to the patient, such as clinical and sociodemographic aspects (e.g., low economic resources, comorbidities and reduced mobility); access to services (e.g., residence in rural areas) and the type of social security affiliation. Categories related to the professionals, such as knowledge and competences (e.g., variability in academic training programs), experience with the amputated patient and communication skills. Categories related to the health system, such as availability of resources, opportunity in the care, information systems, costs of the health services and changes in the regulations of the system. And categories related to the CPG, such as its usefulness, methodological rigor, flexibility and the characteristics of the developer group.

We identified categories not included in the theoretical review, such as the type of affiliation to social security, the variability in academic training programs, the changes in the system's regulations and the usefulness of the CPG. These findings allow designing implementation strategies that respond better to the Colombian scenario.