Impact on healthcare professionals after a workshop in first two steps of evidence based medicine

ABSTRACT

To determine the effectiveness of delivering a single workshop in evidence based medicine by comparing the pre and post workshop scores to ascertain level of knowledge and skills of formulating an answerable question and EBM literature searching skills among healthcare professionals. Single center quasi-experimental study. PNS SHIFA Karachi, Pakistan Navy Medical Training School. Volunteers in four groups including postgraduates group 1, undergraduate group 2, nursing student group 3 and medical technician group 4. Intervention Eight workshops [two per group] of EBM literature searching skills were carried out with pre and post evaluation through first two questions of Fresno tool. A total of 102 participants were enrolled with 17 [16.6%] postgraduates, 34 [33.33%] undergraduates, 31 [30.4%] nursing students and 20 [19.6%] medical technicians. There was statistically significant improvement after the workshop in mean Fresno scores of individual groups. Mean pre and post workshop scores of different groups were nursing students 0.68 and 2.89, medical technicians 0.80 and 3.55, postgraduates 2 and 4.17, undergraduates 1 and 4.97 respectively. A single EBM brief workshop has a statistically significant impact on the competence level of healthcare professionals in first two EBM steps: