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Evidence Based Practice in Health Sciences

What is evidence based practice?

Evidence based practice (EBP) is the integration of clinical expertise, patient values, and the best evidence into the decision making process for patient care.

Sackett, D. L., et al. (2000). Evidence-based medicine: How to practice and teach EBM (2nd ed.). Churchill Livingstone.

The EBP cycle

There are 5 steps in the EBP cycle. This guide focuses on the first three steps in the cycle: developing a searchable question, finding the evidence and appraising the quality of the evidence.

  1. Ask: Construct a well-built clinical question derived from the patient dilemma
  2. Acquire: Select the appropriate resources and conduct a search in order to acquire the evidence
  3. Appraise: Critically appraise the validity and applicability of the evidence
  4. Apply: Integrate evidence with clinical expertise and patient preferences and apply to practice
  5. Act: Evaluate the performance and success of the change in practice. Ask new questions...