Research article
Clinical Evidence: a useful tool for promoting evidence-based practice?
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* Corresponding author: Alessandro Liberati alesslib@tin.it
1 Centro per la Valutazione della Efficacia della Assistenza Sanitaria (CeVEAS), Modena, Italy
2 Centro Cochrane Italiano, Istituto Mario Negri, Milano, Italy
3 Istituto di Igiene, Università degli Studi di Milano, Italy
4 Agenzia Zadig, Giornalismo Scientifico, Milano, Italy
5 Direzione Generale Valutazione Farmaci e Farmacovigilanza, Ministero dalla Salute, Roma, Italy
6 Cattedra di Epidemiologia Clinica e Statistica Medica Università degli Studi di Modena e Reggio Emilia, Italy
BMC Health Services Research 2003, 3:24 doi:10.1186/1472-6963-3-24
Published: 23 December 2003Abstract
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.