[Evidence based occupational health: from theory to practice].

BACKGROUND

Health care organizations are increasingly aware of the need to apply quality assurance principles to serve their mission and there is an increasing pressure on health professionals to ensure that the practice be based on evidence of appropriateness. Therefore, medical specialists of different disciplines, including occupational health, are presently required to shift from habitual practices to evidence-based practices.

OBJECTIVE AND METHODS

This paper aims at illustrating the opportunity offered by the Evidence Based Medicine (EBM), which can be used in the decision making process of the occupational physician according to the Evidence Based Occupational Health (EBOH) paradigm. The EBOH approach consists of 4 steps (i) the formulation of the problem according to the PICO model, (ii) the search for scientific external evidence based on scientific papers and documents available in different database, (iv) the critical appraisal of such evidence, (v) the application of the evidence in the decision making process.

RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS

In spite of some barriers, such as time constraint, which could prevent looking for searchable information, the evidence-based decision-making process should be based on the evidence provided by major resources to answer the question emerging during the practice. Acquiring the skill for information managing facilitates searching appropriate solutions to problems usually met during the professional practice and the adoption of behaviours which will improve the practice.