Evidence-based practice: What do undergraduate health students think it means?
Kylie Murphy, Yann Guisard, Michael Curtin, Jessica Biles, Catherine Thomas, Tracey Parnell
Abstract
Evidence based practice (EBP) is a client-centred, collaborative process of enquiry and reasoning to facilitate defensible healthcare decisions. Developing EBP-competence in health students starts with ensuring that they understand what EBP means. This study explored the meanings undergraduate health students ascribe to EBP and investigated whether these meanings differ based on year level, discipline, or gender.
Methods and Analysis: An online survey of 584 undergraduate students in 20 health degree courses was conducted. This study focuses on the students’ responses to one open-ended question in that survey: ‘What does EBP mean to you?’ Druckman’s method of content analysis, using both etic and emic categories, guided the analysis of the students’ responses.
Results: Only 377 (two-thirds) of the 584 students who submitted the survey provided an answer to the question; approximately half of those in their first year and three-quarters of those in their final year. Most responses demonstrated a very limited understanding of EBP as a process or set of principles. Differences in EBP conceptualisations based on year level, discipline, and gender were negligible.
Discussion and Conclusions: Across all sample subgroups, the majority of students in this study demonstrated a simplistic understanding of EBP. For EBP to achieve its full potential, undergraduate health students may require frequent and explicit exposure to all five steps of the EBP process. If new graduates do not understand EBP to be a contextualised and collaborative process, there is a risk that the potential value of EBP will continue to be compromised.
Access to document: https://doi.org/10.11157/fohpe.v20i3.319
Impact of the learning context on undergraduate healthcare students’ evidence-based practice confidence and attitudes
Kylie Ann Murphy, Yann Guisard, Michael Curtin, Catherine Jane Thomas, Ruth Elizabeth Crawford, Jessica Biles
Abstract
Evidence-based practice (EBP) is a complex process of enquiry and reasoning undertaken by practitioners to ensure defensible healthcare decisions are made. This study investigated the impact of different learning contexts on undergraduate healthcare students’ EBP confidence and attitudes. Within a broader project, 231 third- and fourth-year students in 20 undergraduate healthcare degrees in one Australian university completed an online survey. Students were asked to indicate: the context(s) in which they could remember learning EBP skills (in a research-focused subject, in a non-research-focused subject, and/or during workplace learning); their frequency of exposure to research articles in different learning contexts in the past year; and their levels of EBP confidence and other attitudinal target variables. There was no association between learning EBP skills in a research subject and any target variable. Learning EBP skills in a non-research (e.g., clinically focused) subject or during workplace learning was associated with higher levels of EBP confidence (p < 0.05) and pro-EBP attitudes. In addition, there was a positive relationship between exposure to research articles and EBP confidence, found to be strongest when exposure to the research occurred in the context of practice-based learning (r = 0.42, p < 0.001). The findings show that the curricular context in which EBP skills are taught impacts on students’ EBP confidence and attitudes. Teaching EBP skills in research-focused subjects may be necessary, but it is insufficient for maximising confidence and attitudes conducive to EBP. These findings are relevant to curriculum designers and educators seeking to enhance the effectiveness of undergraduate EBP education.
Access to document https://openjournals.library.sydney.edu.au/index.php/HEP/article/view/12509