Evidence-based medicine among health-care workers in hospitals in Iran: A nationwide survey

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Evidence-based medicine (EBM) plays an important and dominant role in promoting effective decision-making in the health system. This study was aimed to evaluate the EBM performance among health-care workers (HCWs) in hospitals in Iran. METHODS: In this study (a cross-sectional study), participants were 2800 HCWs in hospitals. A researcher-made questionnaire was designed, and judgments of 10 experts were used for the improvement of content validity. The reliability of the questionnaire was assessed by the test-retest method (α = 0.85). Data were analyzed using the descriptive statistics, t -test, and one-way ANOVA, in SPSS.16 software. RESULTS: Eventually, 1524 questionnaires were completed (response rate: 54.4%). The results of the study show that 62%of participants have not accessed scientific journals, 52% of them have difficulties using the Internet at work, guidelines were not reachable for 76% of them, and about 80% have not access to databases. About 39% of participants were not well informed about databases of EBM, and 15.8% of them were immensely knowledgeable about EBM terminology. The most important problems to increase HCWs information about EBM include research methodology- related problems, lack of resources and motivation, and coordination problems. The most prominent facilitators include: providing training courses in EBM and increased facilities. Only work experience showed a significant correlation with barriers and facilitators, and gender revealed a significant correlation with barriers ( P < 0.05). CONCLUSION: It seems that prioritizing the increased access to information resources and databases, considering the research skills of the HCWs, extending the opportunities and increasing the facilities such as workforce, equipment, physical environment, and accessibility can have a great impact on the improvement of the activities associated with EBM.

Nurses' experience of integrating evidence‐based changes into their practice: A qualitative study

“…These barriers were mainly related to the nature of the nursing profession, clinical environment, resources and facilities and the readiness of the organizational context. In line with these results, a review of the studies highlights the barriers to EBP at individual, professional and organizational levels, including lack of time and resources (Clarke et al, 2021;Moosavi et al, 2020), the high number of patients (Moosavi et al, 2020), increased workload (Jordan et al, 2016;Tobiano et al, 2017), resistance to change (Ecker et al, 2021;Theys et al, 2020), lack of commitment to change (Pericas-Beltran et al, 2014), lack of self-confidence and EBP-related experiences (Tobiano et al, 2017) and complex environments (Ogden et al, 2016;Theys et al, 2020).…”

“…Few studies have addressed the nurses' experiences of participating and collaborating in evidence‐based changes (Dagne & Beshah, 2021; McNett et al, 2022). In developing countries such as Iran, there have been many years of studies on nurses' evidence‐based performance, which were largely quantitative or qualitative studies on nurses' knowledge, attitude and barriers to using evidence or end‐of‐grant interventions (Adib‐Hajbaghery, 2009; Moosavi et al, 2020; Shafiei et al, 2014). Therefore, so far, no study has been conducted in Iran that examines the experience of nurses from the time of problem formation, evidence collection, protocol design and its implementation and evaluation.…”

Translation and cross-cultural adaptation of Persian version of Evidence Based Medicine Questionnaire (EBMQ) in postgraduate medical students in Iran

“…In Iran, EBM education has been considered in the graduate curriculum in many medical schools and has received attention in many fields of medical sciences in recent years [ 8 ]. However, awareness of medical professionals in Iran about EBM-specific terms and databases, as well as the knowledge, attitude and practice of different groups is at a low level [ 9 , 10 ].…”

“…Several studies that aimed to determine the barriers and facilities of EBM in Iran have reported that the main barriers to applying EBM are the lack of sufficient knowledge and skills, adequate facilities, lack of time, unfamiliarity with research methods and lack of authority to make change [ 9 , 11 , 12 ]. The results of some studies revealed that, facilities such as creating opportunities, teaching research methods and holding training courses should be considered [ 10 , 13 , 14 ].…”

Evidence-based practice in traditional persian medicine (TPM): a stakeholder and social network analysis

“…Although EBM has been considered for implementation in patient care in many medical science areas in Iran [ 3 ], barriers to its implementation exist. These barriers encompass inadequate facilities [ 4 ], research-related issues, and problems with coordination and motivation [ 5 ].…”