Research article

Clinical Evidence: a useful tool for promoting evidence-based practice?

Giulio Formoso¹ , Lorenzo Moja^2,3 , Francesco Nonino¹ , Pietro Dri⁴ , Antonio Addis⁵ , Nello Martini⁵ and Alessandro Liberati^1,2,6

¹Centro per la Valutazione della Efficacia della Assistenza Sanitaria (CeVEAS), Modena, Italy

²Centro Cochrane Italiano, Istituto Mario Negri, Milano, Italy

³Istituto di Igiene, Università degli Studi di Milano, Italy

⁴Agenzia Zadig, Giornalismo Scientifico, Milano, Italy

⁵Direzione Generale Valutazione Farmaci e Farmacovigilanza, Ministero dalla Salute, Roma, Italy

⁶Cattedra di Epidemiologia Clinica e Statistica Medica Università degli Studi di Modena e Reggio Emilia, Italy

author email corresponding author email

BMC Health Services Research 2003, 3:24doi:10.1186/1472-6963-3-24

Published:	23 December 2003

Abstract

Background

Research has shown that many healthcare professionals have problems with guidelines as they would prefer to be given all relevent information relevent to decision-making rather than being told what they should do. This study assesses doctors' judgement of the validity, relevance, clarity and usability of the Italian translation of Clinical Evidence (CE) after its free distribution launched by the Italian Ministry of Health

Methods

Opinions elicited using a standardised questionnaire delivered either by mail or during educational or professional meetings

Results

Twenty percent (n = 1350) doctors participated the study. Most of them found CE's content valid, useful and relevant for their clinical practice, and said CE can foster communications among clinicians, particularly among GPs and specialists. Hospital doctors (63%) more often than GPs (48%) read the detailed presentation of individual chapters. Twenty-nine percent said CE brought changes in their clinical practice. Doctors appreciated CE's nature of an evidence-based information compendium and would have not preferred a collection of practice guidelines.

Conclusions

Overall, the pilot initiative launched by the Italian Ministry of Health seems to have been well received and to support the subsequent decision to make the Italian edition of Clinical Evidence concise available to all doctors practising in the country. Local implementation initiatives should be warranted to favour doctor's use of CE.