The effect of "evidence-based medicine" education on the knowledge and attitude of medical students

In recent years, in order to improve the quality of medical care, physicians have integrated their clinical expertise and best available research evidences to form evidence-based medicine. This study aims to assess the impact of training of evidence-based medicine on knowledge and attitude of medical students of Mashhad University of Medical Sciences.

This experimental study had a before-after design and did not use a control group and was carried out among 244 medical externs in a course of an educational year. During the one-month course of family medicine, a three-day workshop consisting of seven two-hour sessions were held by faculty staff of community medicine department about definition, components, and how to clinically use EBM in practice. SPSS version 16 was used for data analysis.

The average attitude (total 5 points) improved from 2.2 before the workshop to 4.1, which was statistically significant (P = 0.001). The attitude regarding the positive effects of evidence-based medicine on patient outcome and its practicality and cost-effectiveness for the patient changed drastically. The knowledge of the participants regarding common concepts of EBM improved from 1.4 points to 2.4 points (total 3 points) after the workshop, which was statistically significant (P = 0.001).

Considering negative attitude and inadequate knowledge of students regarding evidence-based medicine, and favorable impact of the workshops on the knowledge and attitude of the students, even in the short-term, necessitates more extensive programs to be designed by the educational staff of the university.