Knowledge, Attitude, and Behavior Among Medical Student at Umm- Al-Qura University Toward Evidence-Based Medicine.

Abstract

This study aims to evaluate the knowledge, attitude and behavior toward evidence based medicine (EBM) among undergraduate medical student in Saudi Arabia and to highlight barriers preventing the use of EBM effectively. Methods: This cross sectional study was conducted on sixth year medical students at Umm Al-Qura University (UQU) by distributing a self-administered questionnaire manually and electronically between November 2014 to January 2015. Results: The survey completed by only 32.5% (n=87) students, all sixth year medical students at UQU showed a good knowledge and a positive attitude towards evidence based medicine. Most of the students find their evidence on the internet, while 52.9% (n=64) never used reliableand peer reviewed sources (Cochrane database) in their searches. There are 58% of student who spend an hour or less daily looking up evidence, while 32.2% (n=28) do not spend any time during their usual day. Lastly, 65% believe that EBM takes too much time for busy medical students and only 29.9% believed that EBM is clearly incorporated during teaching sessions. Conclusion:Good level of knowledge and positive attitude towards evidence based medicine was reported by the students. On the other hand, there is a gap in their actual behaviors of practicing EBM. Accordingly, improvement on education system of EBM is needed to increase the quality and effectiveness of student's skills and their ability of applying EBM in their future by incorporate the EBM in various teaching activities. Further studies are required on a larger scale for generalizing the results.