Evidence-based medicine – an innovative approach to clinical medicine

Abstract

Background: Evidence-based medicine (EBM) represents an approach that integrates clinical experience and patient’s values with the best available research information. It involves a process of lifelong problem-based learning that requires a variety of new skills for medical practitioners such as efficient literature-searching, familiarity with the types of research evidence, clinical literature evaluation and evidence appraisal. The key elements of EBM such as common EBM steps that have been developed to provide an efficient framework for medical practitioners, the types of evidence and how the evidence is appraised for validity, the types of research studies and study designs as well as their corresponding levels of evidence and the “evidence pyramid”. It is necessary to increase the awareness of EBM principles among medical practitioners and pave the way to an evidence-based clinical practice. Conclusions: 1. EBM integrates the best available information with patient’s values, clinical expertise and latest research evidence; 2. A significant progress in the practical implementation of EBM has been made by the increasing availability of EBM resources able to search, appraise and summarize the literature on a given topic; 3. An important element of external evidence and EBM are represented by the systematic reviews and meta-analyses, designed to provide relevant summaries about the best available evidence on a specific topic while minimizing the bias; 4. As a result of increasing demands for an evidencebased approach and a wider availability of information resources, EBM is gaining increasing support among the medical practitioners, optimizing their clinical decision-making, increasing their confidence and facilitating their clinical practice.