Objective To investigate the effect of training courses of evidence-based medicine (EBM) on the knowledge, skill, attitude and behavior of medical postgraduates and to explore the barriers to evidence-based practice (EBP), so as to provide knowledge to improve further EBM teaching and EBP.
Methods A total of 110 medical postgraduates of Sichuan University who selected EBM courses in the autumn semester of 2004 were given questionnaires that combined both open and closed questions. The KAB (knowledge, attitude and behavior) of EBM and barriers to EBP were compared before and after the training courses.
Results Differences were observed in KAB of EBM and barriers to EBP after the training courses, compared to the assessments done before the courses. In “Knowledge”: there was a significant increase in the understanding of specific terms in EBM after the training courses (75% of the items showed a statistically significant improvement). This was especially marked for “absolute risk”, “systematic review”, “meta-analysis” and “publication bias” (P lt;0.01). We also found an improvement in familiarity with medical search engines (P lt;0.05). In “Attitude”: the mean scores for most items (55%) were relatively high both before and after the training courses ( gt;4), and a significant improvement was observed in 2 items. These were “Strong evidence is lacking to support most of the interventions I use with my patients” and “EBP needs to take into account patient preferences” (P lt;0.01). The mean scores of 2 items were relatively low both before and after the training courses ( lt;3). These were “the adoption of EBP places an reasonable demand on physical therapists” and “EBP does not take into account the limitations of my clinical setting”. Another 2 items had mean scores close to 5: “I need to increase the use of evidence in my daily practice” and “I am interested in learning or improving the skills necessary to incorporate EBP into my practice”. In terms of “Behavior”: the medical postgraduates continued not to think highly of the use of literature after the training courses. About 60% of the postgraduates did not read any literature related to their specialties at all. Although searching of MEDLINE and other electronic databases was relatively frequent ( gt;6 times/month: 60.3% before training and 65.7% after training), using professional literature and research findings in the process of clinical decision-making was not equal ( gt;6 times/month: 29% before training and 35.1% after training). No significant difference was observed in applying clinical practice guidelines before and after the training courses. As for “Barriers”: the postgraduates considered “poor ability to critically appraise literature” as the most important barrier both before and after the training courses. The second and third most important barriers were different compared to after the training courses. The barrier of “lack of research skills” was larger than that of “lack of information resources” before the training courses, but after that the course, the order of these was reversed.
Conclusion The knowledge of medical postgraduates increased significantly after the current training courses of EBM. Some improvement was also found in attitude and behavior. The top three barriers to EBP were “Poor ability to critically appraise literature”, “Lack of information resources”, and “Lack of research skills”
Citation： ZHOU Liping,CHEN Jin,AI Changlin,LIU Guanjian,LI Jing,KANG Deying,WANG Li. Can Training Courses Improve Medical Postgraduates’ Knowledge, Skill, Attitude and Behavior Related to Evidence-based Medicine? A Before-and-after Study. Chinese Journal of Evidence-Based Medicine, 2007, 07(5): 337-343. doi: Copy