Background: There is currently no strong evidence regarding the most effective training approach for allied health professionals that will support them to consistently apply the best research evidence in daily practice. Current evidence-based practice training tends to be 'one size fits all’ and is unlikely to be appropriate for all allied health disciplines, because of the variability in their tasks and scope of practice. The scant body of evidence regarding the effectiveness of evidence-based practice training for allied health practitioners provides some support for improving knowledge and skills, but equivocal evidence about influencing behaviours and attitudes.

Findings: This paper is a reflection of the findings of our systematic review in relation to issues associated with training allied health professionals in evidence-based practice (EBP), particularly the training required to change their attitudes and behaviours towards research evidence implementation. There are key issues to consider when designing effective EBP training programs for allied health practitioners, such as; disciplines differ in terms of their contexts and scopes of practice, their clinical training and the research that matter to their day-to-day practice. We propose a new model of evidence-based practice training, based on the Medical Research Council’s concept of complex interventions and Hawe and colleagues' work regarding standardizing complex interventions by considering the interventions as fixed (core, constant) components and variable components. We suggest that EBP training should be similarly considered, as a complex intervention, with fixed and variable aspects.

Conclusions: We believe that by offering training in evidence-based practice based on complex interventions relevant to the needs of the attendees, using fixed and variable components, there may be greater success in significantly influencing knowledge skills, attitudes and behaviours.