Abstract

Lecturer Asmita Shrestha* and Professor Raj Kumar Mehta

ABSTRACT

Introduction: Evidence-based practice (EBP) is the integration of the current bestevidence with the clinical expertise in making decision about the care of individual.EBP is the gold standard for safe and compassionate health care. EBP is importantto improve outcomes of the patient, family, clinician and organizations. Theobjective of the study was to identify the use, knowledge, attitude and perceivedbarrier of EBP among health personnel at point of care. Methods: A descriptive,cross sectional study design was used to assess the knowledge, attitude andperceived barrier of EBP among health personnel of a teaching hospital usingstratified proportionate random sampling technique. A structured, self-administeredquestionnaire was used to collect the data. Obtained data was analyzed usingdescriptive statistics and inferential statistics. Results: Majority (72.3%) of healthpersonnel use EBP at point of care though they had low knowledge regarding EBP(79.5%). More than half (56.2%) had positive attitude towards EBP. The greatestbarrier was slow pace of publication of research reports/articles (62.5%), lack ofauthority to change patient care procedures (58.9%), inadequate facilities forimplementation and not generalizable results to own setting (56.3% each), therelevant literature not compiled in one place (51.8%) and the nurse/doctors isisolated from knowledgeable colleagues (50.9%). Conclusion: The studyconcluded that majority of the respondents had low knowledge regarding EBP andmore than half of the respondents had positive attitude towards EBP. Theorganization/setting related barriers were the highest ranked barriers. Therefore, it isessential to provide educational and training program regarding EBP to improve theknowledge, attitude and practice of EBP at point of care among health personnel.