Clinical effectiveness and EBP: design of a questionnaire

The dual concepts of evidence-based practice and clinical effectiveness have become ever more important for the professions allied to medicine in recent years. In order for suitable initiatives to be derived and future policy shaped and evaluated, it is important that the current level of knowledge of, and attitudes toward the concepts are recorded. In order to achieve this, a questionnaire was developed aimed at recording professionals' attitudes toward, and knowledge of the concepts of evidence-based practice and clinical effectiveness and how they are applied in practice. This article describes the development of the questionnaire, while the second and third parts of the series present the results obtained from the questionnaire survey.