Article type
Year
Abstract
Background: Barriers to knowledge translation generate delays to adopt new effective interventions, persistence of obsolete treatments, overuse of ineffective interventions and underuse of effective care.
Objectives: To examine current knowledge translation practices of Swiss physicians.
Methods: We surveyed French- and German-speaking private practice physicians. Semi-structured open-ended interviews and focus groups targeting family physicians, psychiatrists, cardiologists, endocrinologists, and orthopaedic surgeons in Switzerland, and the existing literature, allowed us to draft an interview questionnaire for the computer-assisted web interview (CAWI) of a large sample of these groups of physicians (summer 2014). We targeted sources of and barriers to information, and adherence to evidence-based medicine (EBM) principles. We computed a score of adherence to EBM based on five items and used uni- and multivariate analyses.
Results: Twenty-nine physicians (21 men) participated in the qualitative study and 985 in CAWI (15% participation, similar among the three Swiss language regions and physicians’ specialty). CAWI indicated that the main sources of information of family physicians included congresses (41%), practice guidelines (38%), colleagues (37%) and specialists (33%), systematic reviews (28%), knowledge syntheses (24%) and quality circles (21%). Perceived usefulness of EBM in daily practice was considered very high by 20%, high by 56%, low by 20% and very low by 4% of physicians. Adherence to EBM decreased slowly with age (-2.1 percentage-points/10 years), and was lower in endocrinologists, family physicians, orthopaedic surgeons and psychiatrists ( -7.0, -8.4, -12.8, -13.8 percentage-points, respectively) compared to cardiologists.
Conclusion: We observed that physicians working in Switzerland use various sources of information to update their knowledge, but that no single source dominates. Evidence-based sources are often used and three-quarters of physicians adhere to its principles. The optimal source, type and format of information for busy physicians are uncertain.
Objectives: To examine current knowledge translation practices of Swiss physicians.
Methods: We surveyed French- and German-speaking private practice physicians. Semi-structured open-ended interviews and focus groups targeting family physicians, psychiatrists, cardiologists, endocrinologists, and orthopaedic surgeons in Switzerland, and the existing literature, allowed us to draft an interview questionnaire for the computer-assisted web interview (CAWI) of a large sample of these groups of physicians (summer 2014). We targeted sources of and barriers to information, and adherence to evidence-based medicine (EBM) principles. We computed a score of adherence to EBM based on five items and used uni- and multivariate analyses.
Results: Twenty-nine physicians (21 men) participated in the qualitative study and 985 in CAWI (15% participation, similar among the three Swiss language regions and physicians’ specialty). CAWI indicated that the main sources of information of family physicians included congresses (41%), practice guidelines (38%), colleagues (37%) and specialists (33%), systematic reviews (28%), knowledge syntheses (24%) and quality circles (21%). Perceived usefulness of EBM in daily practice was considered very high by 20%, high by 56%, low by 20% and very low by 4% of physicians. Adherence to EBM decreased slowly with age (-2.1 percentage-points/10 years), and was lower in endocrinologists, family physicians, orthopaedic surgeons and psychiatrists ( -7.0, -8.4, -12.8, -13.8 percentage-points, respectively) compared to cardiologists.
Conclusion: We observed that physicians working in Switzerland use various sources of information to update their knowledge, but that no single source dominates. Evidence-based sources are often used and three-quarters of physicians adhere to its principles. The optimal source, type and format of information for busy physicians are uncertain.