Evidence Based Practice in Physical Therapy

Evidence-based practice (EBP) is an interdisciplinary approach to clinical practice that has been gaining ground following its formal introduction in 1992. It started in medicine as evidence-based medicine (EBM) and spread to other fields such as dentistry, nursing, psychology, education, library and information science and other fields.

Its basic principles are that all practical decisions made should 1) be based on research studies and 2) that these research studies are selected and interpreted according to some specific norms characteristic for EBP. Typically such norms disregard theoretical studies and qualitative studies and consider quantitative studies according to a narrow set of criteria of what counts as evidence (read more here).

As one of my teachers informed me, EBP is a relative new way of making medical decisions within Physiotherapy. In the medical education to become a doctor it has been practiced for some time now (like more that 30 years).

For using the best evidence within Physiotherapy we need to search databases like http://www.pedro.org.au and be educated in institutions where they teach us how to interpretate scientifically articles.