UBC Physio Info-blog.

This very recent article by Ross Iles and Megan Davidson from School of Physiotherapy, La Trobe University, Australia, published in the very recent issue of Physiotherapy Research International (PHYSIOTHER RES INT), 2006; 11(2): 93-103, worked to investigate Australian physiotherapists' self-reported practice, skills and knowledge of evidence-based practice and to examine differences between recent and experienced graduates, physiotherapists with low and high levels of training and physiotherapists working in private practice and hospital settings.

A survey was sent to 230 physiotherapists working in hospitals and in private practice. One hundred and twenty-four were completed and returned.

Despite the findings that approx 70% of respondents said they frequently (at least monthly) read research literature, only 10.6%, 15.3% and 26.6% of respondents, respectively, searched PEDro, Cochrane and Medline or Cinahl databases frequently, and only 25.8% of respondents reported critically appraising research reports.

Does it surprise you? How often do you search these resources to stay up-to-date with your practice. Okay, I know most of you don’t have access to CINAHL, Cochrane or MEDLINE, however, PubMed and PEDro are FREE!

Interestingly, recent graduates rated their evidence-based practice skills more highly than more experienced graduates, but did not perform evidence-based practice tasks more often.

Physiotherapists with higher levels of training rated their evidence-based practice skills more highly, were more likely to search databases and to understand a range of evidence-based practice terminology than those with lower levels of training.

Intriguingly, private practice and hospital physiotherapists rated their evidence-based practice skills equally and performed most evidence-based practice activities with equal frequency.

The authors concluded that: “Respondents had a positive attitude toward evidence-based practice and the main barriers to evidence-based practice were time required to keep up to date, access to easily understandable summaries of evidence, journal access and lack of personal skills in searching and evaluating research evidence. Efforts to advance evidence-based practice in physiotherapy should focus on reducing these barriers.”

Excellent study , really, and it emphasizes once again what we are trying to do here at our partnership between PABC and UBC. My mandate is to help you with your evidence based needs: research, practice, teaching and learning.

We have workshops that cover PubMed from EBP perspective, I do tons of research questions for you and much more. Even this blog is supposed to satisfy some of your EBP needs :) Have you noticed that?