Research-based Evidence
Evidence-based design and development decisions are made after reviewing information from repeated rigorous data gathering instead of relying on rules, single observations, or custom. Evidence-based medicine and evidence-based nursing practice are the two largest fields employing this approach. In psychiatry and community mental health, evidence-based practice guides have been created by such organizations as the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, in conjunction with the National Alliance on Mental Illness. Evidence-based practice has now spread into a diverse range of areas outside of health where the same principles are known by names such as results-focused policy, managing for outcomes, evidence-informed practice etc.
This model of care has been studied for 30 years in universities and is gradually making its way into the public sector. It effectively moves away from the old “medical model” (You have a disease, take this pill.) to a “evidence presented model” using the patient as the starting point in diagnosis. EBPs are being employed in the fields of health care, juvenile justice, mental health and social services among others. The theories of evidence based practice are becoming more commonplace in the nursing care. Nurses who are “baccalaureate prepared are expected to seek out and collaborate with other types of nurses to demonstrate the positives of a practice that is based on evidence.”
Key elements in using the best evidence to guide the practice of any professional include the development of questions using research-based evidence, the level and types of evidence to be used, and the assessment of effectiveness after completing the task or effort. One obvious problem with EBP in any field is the use of poor quality, contradictory, or incomplete evidence. Evidence-based practice continues to be a developing body of work for professions as diverse as education, psychology, economics, nursing, social work and architecture.
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Famous quotes containing the word evidence:
“I believe that no characteristic is so distinctively human as the sense of indebtedness we feel, not necessarily for a favor received, but even for the slightest evidence of kindness; and there is nothing so boorish, savage, inhuman as to appear to be overwhelmed by a favor, let alone unworthy of it.”
—Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43 B.C.)