Article type
Year
Abstract
Introduction: The frequent absence of scientific rigor in expert opinions, textbooks, and the majority of scientific meetings limits effective, safe, and efficient decision making in public and private health care services.
Objectives: To evaluate the effectiveness of a brief course in Evidence-Based Medicine that informs health care workers about the best sources of information to use when making decisions about health care.
Methods: Sixty health care workers were evaluated before and after attending a 4-hour course in Evidence-Based Medicine at a teaching primary care health service in the Amazonian Region (Belém City, Parà State, Brazil). A multiple-choice question about the sources of information to use in decision making in health care was delivered before and 5 months after the course. The available alternatives were ‘congress’, ‘textbooks’, ‘expert opinions’, ‘Google’, and ‘other sources of information’ (an open-ended alternative). Because of the absence of personal identification in the questionnaires, we used the qui-square test for independent samples.
Results: The participants were physiotherapists (23.3%), undergraduate students from different health courses (21.7%), occupational therapists (15%), physicians (5%), and other health professionals and administrative team members (35%). Only 51/60 participants provided information 5 months after the course. At that time, the percentage of answers that referenced ‘congress’ as a reliable source of health care information was reduced from 28.3 to 11.7% (p = 0.04), the choice of ‘text books’ and ‘expert opinions’ were reduced but without statistical significance from 75 to 58.8% (p = 0.07), and 8.3 to 3.9% (p = 0.35), respectively (Fig. 1). No participant referred evidence-based-guidelines, systematic reviews or randomized controlled trials as reliable sources of information when making health care decisions.
Conclusions: According to our results, educational strategies on Evidence-Based Medicine should be continuously offered to health care workers, especially those in low-income regions around the world, to achieve more effective, efficient, and safer health service.
Objectives: To evaluate the effectiveness of a brief course in Evidence-Based Medicine that informs health care workers about the best sources of information to use when making decisions about health care.
Methods: Sixty health care workers were evaluated before and after attending a 4-hour course in Evidence-Based Medicine at a teaching primary care health service in the Amazonian Region (Belém City, Parà State, Brazil). A multiple-choice question about the sources of information to use in decision making in health care was delivered before and 5 months after the course. The available alternatives were ‘congress’, ‘textbooks’, ‘expert opinions’, ‘Google’, and ‘other sources of information’ (an open-ended alternative). Because of the absence of personal identification in the questionnaires, we used the qui-square test for independent samples.
Results: The participants were physiotherapists (23.3%), undergraduate students from different health courses (21.7%), occupational therapists (15%), physicians (5%), and other health professionals and administrative team members (35%). Only 51/60 participants provided information 5 months after the course. At that time, the percentage of answers that referenced ‘congress’ as a reliable source of health care information was reduced from 28.3 to 11.7% (p = 0.04), the choice of ‘text books’ and ‘expert opinions’ were reduced but without statistical significance from 75 to 58.8% (p = 0.07), and 8.3 to 3.9% (p = 0.35), respectively (Fig. 1). No participant referred evidence-based-guidelines, systematic reviews or randomized controlled trials as reliable sources of information when making health care decisions.
Conclusions: According to our results, educational strategies on Evidence-Based Medicine should be continuously offered to health care workers, especially those in low-income regions around the world, to achieve more effective, efficient, and safer health service.
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