EBN NOTEBOOK
Evidence-based practice targets the individual patient. Part 1: how clinicians can use study results to determine optimal individual care
1 University Children’s Hospital, Tuebingen, Germany
2 McMaster University, Faculty of Health Sciences, Hamilton, Ontario Canada
3 University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada
| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
Despite increasing acknowledgement of its importance,1 some continue to characterise evidence-based practice (EBP) as focusing on groups of patients, and neglecting the individual.2 3 In this 2-part Notebook, we will describe EBP tools that address individual patient decision making. In this first part, we will focus on guides for applying research evidence and for determining benefit-to-risk ratios in individual patients.
EBP assists clinicians pondering the generalisability of RCT results to their individual patients and their individual circumstances (table).4–6 That guidance directs clinicians to look for possible differences in biological factors, socioeconomic characteristics, and attitudinal or behavioural characteristics of individual patients that might modulate treatment effects.7 For instance, antibiotics for otitis media seem to be most beneficial in children younger than 2 years of age with bilateral acute otitis media, and in children with both acute otitis media and otorrhoea.8
Healthcare characteristics should also be considered because research studies are often conducted
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Drugs: cardiovascular system
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Drugs: infectious diseases
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