Research: the principles of evidence-based medicine

Summary 

The concept of evidence-based medicine (EBM) has appeared as clinicians are becoming more and more overwhelmed by the exponential increase in medical literature and need a means of locating, making sense of and applying, relevant information to patient care. EBM attempts to integrate the clinical information obtained from a patient with the best evidence available from clinical research and experience. This article will describe the principles of EBM and illustrate how they can be used to improve paediatric practice.

KEYWORDS: Focused question, Study design, Randomized controlled trial, Systematic review, Critical appraisal