Evidence-Based Practice: What'S in It For You?
Evidence-Based Practice: What'S in It For You?
Evidence-Based Practice: What'S in It For You?
Unlike research utilization (info from a single study), EBP - takes into account
expertise of the practitioner and patient preferences / values
Melnyk & Fineout-Overholt 2005
FORMULATING THE CLINICAL
QUESTION
The “PICO” format is used to construct the
clinical question specifically
Using PICO format helps you find a needle in a
hay stack of research information
PICO FORMAT
Patient Population
Intervention of Interest
Outcome
PATIENT POPULATION
Consideration of the patient and population of
interest
Limit to age group or subgroup if possible
INTERVENTION
Exposure
Treatment
Patient perception
Diagnostic test
COMPARISON
Could be true control, such as placebo or doing
nothing
Could be another treatment
65, 251-258.
Siwek, J. et al. (2002). Am Fam Physician
Level A: Randomized control trial (RCT)
Level B: (other evidence)
Well-designed, nonrandomized trial
Non-quantitative systematic review
Lower quality RCT’s, clinical cohort studies, case-
control studies
High-quality historical, less controlled studies, well-
designed epidemiological studies
Level C: consensus/expert opinion
SEARCHING FOR THE BEST
EVIDENCE: SEARCHABLE
DATABASES
CINAHL
MEDLINE: (PubMed)