LibGuides: SCHI Library: Evidence Based Practice

Evidence Based Practice

What is Evidence Based Practice?

Evidence-based practice (EBP) is defined as the "integration of the best research evidence with our clinical expertise and our patient's unique values and circumstances" (Strauss et al. 2019). Drawn together, this information can help drive positive health outcomes.

Why is Evidence Based Practice used?

EBP encourages health professionals to ask: Why am I doing this in this way? Is there evidence that supports a more effective way? Evidence can then be integrated with clinical expertise to support decision making, delivering good patient outcomes.

Patients are also supported in making informed decisions about their health care.

How is EBP practiced?

EBP follows a process of five steps:

Ask a question
- What clinical question or problem are you trying to solve? (e.g. What is the best intervention? What is the process for diagnosis? etc.)
- Develop your clinical question using the PICO framework.
Find the best evidence
- What evidence is available to help answer your question? (e.g. systematic reviews, clinical trials etc.)
- The hierarchy of evidence pyramid helps identify the appropriate evidence for your clinical question (see below).
Evaluate the evidence
- What is the quality of the evidence? Is it trustworthy? How is it applicable to your clinical question?
Apply the best evidence in combination with clinical expertise and patient values
- How can the evidence be applied?
- How does the evidence align with the patient values and beliefs?
Evaluate outcomes

Readings in Evidence Based Practice

Evidence based medicine: what it is and what it isn't
Evidence based medicine is the conscientious, explicit, and judicious use of current best evidence in making decisions about the care of individual patients. The practice of evidence based medicine means integrating individual clinical expertise with the best available external clinical evidence from systematic research.
Principles of evidence based medicine
Health care professionals are increasingly required to base clinical decisions on the best available evidence. Evidence based medicine (EBM) is a systematic approach to clinical problem solving which allows the integration of the best available research evidence with clinical expertise and patient values. This paper explains the concept of EBM and introduces the five step EBM model: formulation of answerable clinical questions; searching for evidence; critical appraisal; applicability of evidence; evaluation of performance. Subsequent articles will focus on the principles and critical appraisal of randomised controlled trials, systematic reviews, and meta-analyses, and provide a practical demonstration of the five step EBM model using a real life clinical scenario.
A review and practical application of evidence based medicine (EBM): Testicular adrenal rest tumour
Nowadays, Medical practice is largely based on the best available evidence. However, the evidence may not always be readily available and clinician and/or other health allied professionals may need to learn how to search for it. This article gives highlights on the very vast and growing subject of evidence based medicine (EBM), followed by a practical application of searching for it in the real life, in a situation when the available evidence is limited.