Clinicians' Perception on the Need and Application for Evidence Based Practice within the Healthcare Profession
Purpose/Hypothesis:
The use of evidence based practice (EBP) is a necessary approach for optimal clinical reasoning in healthcare. 1 CAPTE mandates its use in physical therapy education (PTE), stipulating that the primary mission of such programs is to include “contemporary preparation of physical therapists”, defined as requiring “preparation for evidence based practice”.2 The actual post-graduation retention rate of EBP concepts provided in PTE curricula remains unclear due to underreported or ineffective evaluation methods. 3 Ilic (2009) pointed out that competency in biostatistics is needed for EBP; such knowledge has been suggested to be achievable by the knowledge acquisition of as little as 81 “common representative terms”. 5 Kume et al. (in press) reported that while the importance of using EBP in the clinical setting was universally recognized by a cohort of practicing physical therapists, the ability to answer correctly clinically-based questions requiring general statistical knowledge was poor.6 The current study surveyed a broad range of licensed, practicing healthcare professionals, obtained through referral from Touro College faculty, to assess the perceptions and use of EBP and the ability to answer 5 clinically based questions requiring statistical knowledge. Prior to the study, approval from the Touro Health Science Institutional Review Board was obtained.
Number of Subjects: Subjects included: physical therapists (PT, n=36), occupational therapists (OT, n=11), nurses (n=33), and physician assistants (PA, n=8); all were licensed and practicing clinicians within their healthcare discipline.
Materials and Methods: Responses were collected through an anonymous Qualtrics survey link that was distributed by Touro faculty via snowball referrals; demographic information (years of clinical experience, affiliation with professional advocacy organizations, highest degree attained, work duties), perceptions and ability to define (per Sackett, 1996) on EBP, method in reading peer-reviewed articles, and ability to answer statistically related questions were assessed.
Results: Out of the total respondents (N=88), 65.9% (n=58) strongly agreed that “evidence based practice will help my professional clinical skill set”; 29.6% (n=26) agreed with that statement, 4.6% (n=4) agreed somewhat. Despite this, the percent who answered correctly 5 basic statistically oriented questions (denoted as Q17-Q21) per discipline were comparably low: PT (25.7, 48.5, 0, 56.7, 42.9%); OT (54.5, 9, 11.1, 18.20, 30); Nursing (43.3, 27.60, 3.80, 42.90, 29.60); and PA (28.60, 0, 1.7, 2.9, 4.3), respectively
Conclusions: The current data suggests that the ability to apply general statistical knowledge in clinically based questions is not well demonstrated by a diverse group of practicing healthcare clinicians, regardless of years of clinical experience nor highest academic degree obtained.
Clinical Relevance: These findings are consistent with that previously reported (Kume et al., in press) and indicate the need for additional support systems for practicing clinicians to help improve the knowledgebase necessary for accurate EBP implementation.