Evidence Based Practice

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This assignment will be focusing on the concept of evidence-based practice in health and social care and also looking at the implications this has for developing research-mindedness within organisations. There are various definitions of evidence based practice, Sackett et al (1997) defines evidence based practice as ‘the conscientious, explicit and judicious use of current best evidence in making decisions about the care of individual patients/clients.’ This definition promotes basing evidence based practice on clinical practice rather than the opinions of the patients or clients. Appleby et al (1995), supports to base clinical decisions on evidence from unsubstantiated opinions towards research. This is important as evidence from clinical…show more content…
The first is, use of evidence from clinically relevant research that has been conducted using sound methodology. The second is clinical or professional judgement, this refers to the clinician’s experience, cumulated education and clinical skills. The third is the patient or client’s preference, concerns and expectations. Using qualitative research as source of evidence for evidence based practice provides knowledge and deeper understanding of what the patient or client’s opinions on treatment or care. Upshur et al (2001) recognised that qualitative methods is crucial in providing a contextual understanding of the complexities and dynamic sociocultural context, values and perspective, which are an inevitable aspect in the deliverance of effective…show more content…
Systematic reviews ‘typically involve a detailed and comprehensive plan and search strategy derived a priori , with the goal of reducing bias by identifying, appraising and synthesizing all relevant studies on a particular topic’. (Uman, 2011) Systematic reviews are important because they summarise literature available on one topic which is useful decision – makers. It also doesn’t give a chance for one piece of information to have too much influence, it provides new knowledge and it presents an analysis of the available literature. However, systematic reviews also have their limitations for example research papers that have not been published may have been left out and other primary research or research papers published outside Britain may have been excluded. This leads to the study being biased, giving results that are not accurately. Systematic reviews require a lot of time, resources and careful supervision hence they are not easy to carry

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