PERRLA/Guides/APA 7/Clinical practice guideline

How to Cite a Clinical Practice Guideline in APA 7

In APA 7, cite a clinical practice guideline the way you found it. A guideline on an organization's website is cited like a report: the organization or committee that developed it as the author, the year in parentheses, the guideline title in italics and sentence case, any guideline number in parentheses, and the URL, with the site name left out when it matches the author. A guideline published in a journal, like most AHA guidelines, is cited as a journal article with its authors, journal, volume, issue, pages, and DOI. The in-text citation is the author and year: (National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, 2018).

The format

Organization Name. (Year). Title of the guideline (Guideline No. XX). https://www.organization.org/...

PERRLA APA Experts · Updated October 21, 2026
Checked against the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 7th edition. Every example is formatted by PERRLA's reference engine.

First, the easy way: PERRLA

Paste the guideline's link into PERRLA's reference search. PERRLA knows NICE: paste a nice.org.uk/guidance page and it builds the guideline as Gray Literature, with National Institute for Health and Care Excellence as the group author, the title in sentence case, the year it was first published, and the NICE guideline number in parentheses. Citing a guideline NICE has updated since? Change the year to the year of the update. For a guideline published in a journal, paste its DOI or PubMed ID and PERRLA builds the journal article, every author included, and trims a long author list the APA way.

Adding one from another organization's site by hand? Choose Gray Literature (Reports, Briefs, Codes), then A standalone work: report, brief, codes, etc. Add a Group Author (Organization) with the organization's abbreviation in Abbrev., put any guideline number in Identifying Information, and put a description like Final recommendation statement in Format or Type. If the organization is also the publisher, PERRLA leaves the publisher out for you.

Look up
Paste a NICE guideline link, get the reference

https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ng97

National Institute for Health and Care Excellence. (2018). Dementia: Assessment, management and support for people living with dementia and their carers (NICE Guideline NG97). https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ng97

Not using PERRLA yet? Here is how to build the same reference by hand.

The parts of the reference

1. First, where did you find it?

Clinical practice guidelines come in two forms, and the form decides the reference. A guideline you read on the organization's own website, like a NICE guideline or a USPSTF recommendation, is cited like a report. A guideline published in a journal, like the AHA and ACC guidelines in Circulation, is cited as a journal article.

Website guideline: ... Dementia: Assessment, management and support for people living with dementia and their carers (NICE Guideline NG97). https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ng97

Journal guideline: ... Circulation, 152(11), e114–e218. https://doi.org/10.1161/CIR.0000000000001356

Some guidelines exist in both places. USPSTF recommendations are on the task force's site and in JAMA. Cite the version you actually read.

2. Author: the committee or agency

On a website guideline, the author is the organization or committee that developed it, spelled out in full. Use the name exactly as the guideline writes it.

National Institute for Health and Care Excellence.

When the title page credits both a committee and the agency it belongs to, the committee is the author and the agency goes in the source spot after the title. When it credits only an agency, the agency is the author. And when individual people are listed as the authors, as on most journal guidelines, list those people.

3. Year

Give the year the guideline was developed, in parentheses. Website guidelines take the year only.

(2018).

If you're citing an updated version, use the year of the update. NICE pages show a Published date and, after an update, a Last updated date. NG97 has never been updated, so its year is simply 2018. On a journal guideline, use the journal's publication year.

4. Title, in italics

Write the guideline title in italics and sentence case: capitalize the first word, the first word after a colon, and proper nouns. USPSTF and AHA print titles in title case, so you'll lowercase most words. NICE already uses lowercase, but it lowercases the word after the colon too, and APA capitalizes it.

Dementia: Assessment, management and support for people living with dementia and their carers

Keep the organization's own punctuation inside the title. NICE doesn't use a serial comma in this title, so you don't add one. A journal guideline's title is the article title, so it is not italicized: only the journal name and volume are.

5. Guideline number or description

If the guideline has a number, put it in parentheses after the title, not italicized. NICE guidelines always have one.

(NICE Guideline NG97).

When the title alone doesn't say what kind of document it is, you can add a short description in square brackets after the title, such as [Final recommendation statement] for a USPSTF recommendation. That keeps it from being confused with the task force's evidence summary on the same topic.

6. Source and URL

Give the name of the website the guideline came from, unless the organization is also the author, in which case leave the site name out. Then end with the URL, with no period after it.

https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ng97

Link to the guideline's landing page, not a search results page. For a journal guideline, end with the DOI instead.

Examples

A NICE guideline, with its guideline number

NICE's dementia guideline, NG97, published June 20, 2018, and a core source in gerontological and mental health nursing. NICE is the author and runs the site, so there's no site name. The citation points to one recommendation, using NICE's own numbering.

  • Parenthetical citation(National Institute for Health and Care Excellence [NICE], 2018, Recommendation 1.4.1)
  • Narrative citationThe National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE, 2018, Recommendation 1.4.1)
  • Later citations(NICE, 2018, Recommendation 1.4.1)

A USPSTF recommendation from the task force's website

The US Preventive Services Task Force's 2023 recommendation on screening adults for depression and suicide risk, read on the task force's own site. The task force is the author and the site owner, and the bracketed description says which USPSTF document this is.

  • Parenthetical citation(US Preventive Services Task Force [USPSTF], 2023)
  • Narrative citationThe US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF, 2023)
  • Later citations(USPSTF, 2023)

The same recommendation, as published in JAMA

The same USPSTF recommendation, read in JAMA. Now it's a journal article. JAMA lists the task force first and then its 18 members, so all of them go in the reference, and the in-text citation uses the task force's name and et al.

  • Parenthetical citation(US Preventive Services Task Force et al., 2023)
  • Narrative citationThe US Preventive Services Task Force et al. (2023)

An AHA guideline published in a journal, with 21 or more authors

The 2025 high blood pressure guideline from the AHA, the ACC, and 11 other organizations, including the American Association of Nurse Practitioners and the Preventive Cardiovascular Nurses Association. It was published in three journals, and this is the Circulation version. With 28 authors, the reference lists the first 19, an ellipsis, and the last author.

  • Parenthetical citation(Jones et al., 2025)
  • Narrative citationJones et al. (2025)

In-text citations

Cite a guideline by its author and year, the same way for the website and journal forms.

  • Organization as author: (National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, 2018) or National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (2018)
  • With an abbreviation: spell it out the first time, (National Institute for Health and Care Excellence [NICE], 2018), then use (NICE, 2018)
  • One recommendation: use the guideline's own numbering, (NICE, 2018, Recommendation 1.4.1)
  • Journal guideline with individual authors: (Jones et al., 2025)
  • Group author listed first, then members: (US Preventive Services Task Force et al., 2023)

No page numbers in an online guideline? Point to a recommendation, a section heading, or a paragraph number instead of a page.

Common mistakes

  • National Institute for Health and Care Excellence. (2018). Dementia: Assessment, management and support for people living with dementia and their carers. NICE. https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ng97National Institute for Health and Care Excellence. (2018). Dementia: Assessment, management and support for people living with dementia and their carers (NICE Guideline NG97). https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ng97The site name repeats the author, so it comes out. The guideline number belongs in parentheses after the title.
  • American Heart Association. (2025). 2025 AHA/ACC/... guideline for the prevention, detection, evaluation and management of high blood pressure in adults.Jones, D. W., Ferdinand, K. C., ... (the first 19 authors) ... Williamson, J. D. (2025). 2025 AHA/ACC/... guideline ... Circulation, 152(11), e114–e218. https://doi.org/10.1161/CIR.0000000000001356A guideline published in a journal is a journal article. Its authors are the writing committee members listed on the article, not the association.
  • Jones, D. W., Ferdinand, K. C., Taler, S. J., et al. (2025).Jones, D. W., Ferdinand, K. C., ... (the first 19 authors) ... Williamson, J. D. (2025).APA 7 never uses et al. in a reference. List up to 20 authors; with 21 or more, list the first 19, an ellipsis, and the last author.
  • National Institute for Health and Care Excellence. (2018). Dementia... (NICE Guideline NG97). Retrieved October 21, 2026, from https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ng97National Institute for Health and Care Excellence. (2018). Dementia... (NICE Guideline NG97). https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/ng97A published guideline is a stable document, so it doesn't need a retrieval date. When it's updated, the update gets its own year.
  • (NICE, 2018) the first time you cite NICE(National Institute for Health and Care Excellence [NICE], 2018)Spell out a group author's name the first time and define the abbreviation. After that, (NICE, 2018) is enough.

Quick checklist

  • Website guideline as a report; journal guideline as a journal article
  • The committee or agency that developed it as the author, spelled out
  • The year developed, or the year of the update you're citing
  • Title in italics and sentence case on a website guideline
  • Guideline number in parentheses, if there is one
  • No site name when the organization is the author
  • URL for a website guideline, DOI for a journal guideline

Questions students ask

Is a clinical practice guideline a journal article or a report?

It depends on where you read it. Guidelines on an organization's website, like NICE guidelines and USPSTF recommendations, follow the report format. Guidelines published in a journal, like most AHA, ACC, and IDSA guidelines, follow the journal article format, with the DOI.

How do I cite a USPSTF recommendation?

On the task force's website, cite it like a report: US Preventive Services Task Force as the author, the year, the title in italics, and the URL. If you read it in JAMA, cite the JAMA article, which lists the task force and its members as authors. Both are shown above.

Which year do I use when a guideline has been updated?

The year of the version you're citing. If you're citing the updated guideline, use the update's year. NICE lists both a Published date and, for updated guidelines, a Last updated date at the top of the guideline's overview page.

Do I include the guideline number?

Yes, when there is one. It goes in parentheses after the title, not italicized: (NICE Guideline NG97). Copy it the way the organization writes it.

How do I cite a WHO guideline?

Like any guideline on an organization's site: World Health Organization as the author, the year, the italic title, and the URL, with no publisher because WHO is the author. Our WHO report guide covers WHO's reference numbers, IRIS links, and DOIs.

Can I cite a guideline I found through UpToDate or a hospital policy page?

Cite the guideline itself whenever you can find it, on the organization's site or in the journal. An UpToDate topic that summarizes a guideline is a different source with its own reference, and an internal hospital policy your reader can't access is usually cited as a personal communication or described in the text.

Rules checked against the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed.), Sections 8.13, 8.17, 8.21, 9.8, 9.11, 9.14, 9.19, 9.21, 9.24, 9.29, 9.34–9.35, 10.1, and 10.4, and the APA Style website's nursing reference examples for clinical practice guidelines. Example sources verified on the NICE guideline's overview page, the USPSTF recommendation page, PubMed and Crossref for the JAMA article, and the Circulation article page and PubMed for the AHA/ACC guideline's full author list.

PERRLA builds NICE guidelines from their link and journal guidelines from their DOI, guideline numbers and long author lists included.

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