Family Physicians' Knowledge, Attitudes, and Perceived Barriers on the Practice of Evidence Based Medicine, Mansoura, Egypt

Abstract

There is a gap between what is known in medicine and what is done clinically by health care providers. This gap is mainly the result of the huge amount of the available new information, which needs a great effort to grasp it. Recently, a new paradigm has been emerged known as evidence-based medicine (EBM). It seems to be a solution of integrating the best research evidence with clinical experts and patient values, to close this gap. EBM improve the quality of care provided to patients through elimination of those harmful or ineffective interventions. It also promotes critical thinking through helping clinicians acquiring the skills of finding, critically appraising, and introducing the scientifically sound information into their own clinical practice

Aim of the work: • To determine knowledge, attitude, and practice of EBM among Family physicians in Mansoura administration. • To identify barriers to use EBM among Family physicians in Mansoura administration. Participants and methods: A cross sectional study carried out from (Jan 2014 to June 2014) in Mansoura district, El-dakahlya Governorate, among family physicians working in FHC and unites for more than one year at urban and rural areas regardless of their specialties. All primary health care centers were included and all the available physicians were recruited (186). A self-administered questionnaire adapted from McCol et al, 1998 and McAlister 1999 with some modifications, such modifications are change in order of the questions and change questions with visual analogue scale to Likert scale to make answers easier to be understood and to facilitate data entry. Results: ¬This study included 186 of physicians working in health unites. Their age ranged from 25 to 59 years and 122 were females. Around half of them were general practitioners 87, in sub-senior grade, or were affiliated to accredited centers. The term of EBM was known by the vast majority of the study group (98.4%), but awareness of the physicians in PHC about the resources of evidence was generally low. The mean score percentage of awareness among the study group was 32.64% and the likelihood of having an awareness score less than the median among the general practitioner group was about 4 times that among the specialist group. However, positive attitude was clearly observed; the vast majority of participants (97.31%) believed that EBM improve patient’s care and the mean score percentage of attitude was 76.55%. Attitude score percentage was not affected by any of the studied factors. Usage of the different sources of evidence during clinical practice was limited, with the PubMed being the most frequently used (10.8%). The mean score percentage of evidence usage was 61.50%. The physician