Evidence based medicine Flashcards
What is EBM ?
The process of finding, appraising and using the best available external clinical evidence in combination with individual clinical expertise and professional judgement to make informed clinical decisions about the health and care of individual patients .
i.e. applying scientific research to everyday practice
Why do we need EBM ?
- daily need for valid and up to date information
- helps to choose best therapeutic interventions
- helps to evaluate the value of new treatments and future health developments
- reduces gap between research and practice
Limitations of EBM
-cant always find evidence
- cants always access evidence
- time consuming process
- doesn’t always provide a perfect answer.
How do we practice EBM ?
- formulate a clinical question
- find evidence
- appraise the evidence
- apply evidence to clinical practice
- evaluate steps 1-4 and redefine question if necessary
what are the two components of background questions ?
background qs is general knowledge to inform individual clinical decisions or actions using the evidence available
- question root
-a condition, disease, investigation, treatment
What is a foreground question and what are the four components ?
a foreground question is specific knowledge to inform individual clinical decisions or actions using the evidence available.
- patient, population or problem
- intervention being considered
- comparison intervention
- clinical outcomes of interest
Appraisal of evidence
done by experts using a reputable source of information.
published studies may use surrogate outcomes to predict the clinical outcome of an intervention
there are a number of problems with finding evidence that depends on surrogate outcomes :
- only measures a single outcome
- may not measure patient harm or adverse effects
- may not accurately predict the clinical outcome
