A QUESTIONNAIRE STUDY ON KNOWLEDGE AND ATTITUDE TOWARDS EVIDENCE BASED MEDICINE AMONG INTERNS AND POSTGRADUATES IN A TERTIARY CARE TEACHING HOSPITAL

Background: Evidence based medicine (EBM) integrates the best available data from clinical research into clinical practice. Residents (PGs & CRRIs) are at the frontiers of healthcare who are still struggling to adapt the paradigm shift in the practice of medicine. This study aims to explore the knowledge and attitude of EBM among residents in a tertiary teaching hospital. Materials and Methods: After IEC approval, this cross-sectional questionnaire study was conducted among PGs and CRRIs in Melmaruvathur Adhiparasakthi institute of medical sciences & Research for 3 months. All the 81 CRRIs and 51 PGs were enrolled. Written informed consent was obtained. The pre-validated, 20 questionnaires, designed based on McColl questionnaire has been used to obtain information about the knowledge (10 questions) and attitude (10 questions) of EBM. SPSS 21.0 was used for data analysis Results: Out of 132 participants, 63.81% had formal EBM training while, 21.21 % had no previous exposure. Regarding the knowledge of some commonly used technical terms in EBM, 84.31% (43) of PGs and 11.11% (9) of CRRIs responded that they know and can explain the term ‘relative risk’. The participants reported that, they could interpret and explain the terms, such as “Absolute risk” (37.87%), “odds ratio” (41.66%) and “Attributable risk” (35.6%). Majority (62.12%) of them were unfamiliar with Forest plot. The mean (± SD) attitude score of PGs 41.90 ± 4.36 and CRRIs 40.11 ± 4.38 showed an overall favorable attitude towards EBM. Conclusion: Formal EBM training and integration of EBM in undergraduate programs considerably promotes EBM practice, enhancing the opportunity for ideal clinical decision- making.