Mental health clinicians' views of summary and systematic review utility in evidence-based practice.

BACKGROUND

Evidence-based practice (EBP) requires integration of research evidence with clinical expertise and patient preferences. It is endorsed by many regulatory bodies, using the approach is challenging for many busy clinicians.

OBJECTIVES

To explore mental health practitioners' perceptions of the factors which help, and which hinder, EBP and their views of two formats for presenting research findings - a systematic review and a one-page summary of that review. (written by a clinical librarian) METHODS: Qualitative semi-structured interviews with a multi-professional sample of mental health clinicians. (n=7) RESULTS: Participants worked under varying time constraints, with some participants perceiving a conflict between research activities such as reading the evidence and their clinical duties one-page research summary would help some participienrs to identify potentially valuable evidence quickly. However, participants agreed that they would need to read full systematic review to assess whether and how their practice could or should change.

DISCUSSION

A one-page research summary can perform useful functions for clinicians; however, they require more detailed research reports such as systematic reviews to judge research's external validity.

CONCLUSION

This exploratory study indicates that writing evidence summaries is a useful role for clinical librarians, as part of training and support for EBP.