Article Text
Abstract
Objectives To explore the knowledge, use, attitudes towards Evidence-based Medicine, also known as Evidence-based Practice (EBP), and perceived barriers to its dissemination among physiotherapists.
Design Cross-sectional study.
Setting and participants Members of the Italian Association of Physiotherapists (n=2000) were invited to participate in an online survey about EBP knowledge and use.
Primary outcome measures The survey questionnaire comprised four sections: (1) respondent characteristics; (2) knowledge of EBP principles; (3) attitude, use and perceived effectiveness of EBP; (4) perceived barriers to implementing EBP in clinical practice.
Results Out of 2000 physiotherapists, 1289 participated in the survey (64.5% response rate). Overall, 90% perceived EBP as useful and necessary for their clinical practice. More than 85% stated that they were familiar with the principles of EBP, 75% reported that they were able to search online databases for relevant information and 60% reported that they were able to understand statistical analyses. However, 56% believed that patient preferences and 39% that clinical expertise are not part of the EBP model. Half stated that they understood and could explain the term ‘meta-analysis’ but only 17% knew what a forest plot is and just 20% correctly judged the finding of a given meta-analysis. Lack of time was reported as the main barrier to EBP.
Conclusion The majority of Italian physiotherapists overrated their knowledge about EBP, demonstrating a gap between perceived and actual knowledge of EBP in this population.
- medical education & training
- rehabilitation medicine
- epidemiology
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Footnotes
Contributors SG and GC were primarily responsible for study conception and design and for data analysis and interpretation. All authors (SG, GC, DC, SC) had full access to all of the data in the study and take responsibility for the integrity of the data and the accuracy of the data analysis. DC led the writing of the first draft of the manuscript. All authors (SG, GC, DC, SC) contributed to drafting and revising the manuscript. SG is the guarantor. All authors (SG, GC, DC, SC) read and approved the final manuscript.
Funding The study was supported by the Italian Ministry of Health, Linea 3 (Consapevolezza e competenza dei principi dell’Evidence-based Medicine (EBM) in coorti di professionisti sanitari coinvolti nell’ambito dei disordini muscoloscheletrici).
Competing interests None declared.
Patient and public involvement Patients and/or the public were not involved in the design, or conduct, or reporting, or dissemination plans of this research.
Patient consent for publication Obtained. Written informed consent was assumed if the respondents completed and submitted the survey after reading the purpose statement of the study.
Ethics approval We conducted this study in compliance with the principles outlined in the Declaration of Helsinki. The survey questionnaire was filled out anonymously, and responses could not be traced back to respondents. Written informed consent was assumed if the respondents completed and submitted the survey after reading the purpose statement of the study. Ethics approval was not required.
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.
Data availability statement Data are available in a public, open access repository. Availability of data and material: All data generated or analysed during this study are available at https://osf.io/8xb6p/?view_only=1c6fd76403c04a82942799b9dee952c8.