Evidence-based patient choice and psychiatry

Evidence-based medicine and patient centred care are natural bedfellows. Muir Gray coined the term evidence-based patient choice, 1 which provides the title for Elwyn and Edward's edited collection of commissioned papers addressing a wide range of relevant perspectives. 2 Both evidence-based medicine and patient centred care have developed as a critical response to what is perceived to be the excessive authority given in traditional medicine to physicians and other health professionals. Evidence-based medicine emphasises the point that it is not the authority of the physician that justifies a particular clinical intervention but the evidence for that intervention's effectiveness. Patient centred medicine emphasises the point that patients should play a central role in decisions about their health care. Providing evidence-based knowledge to patients should enhance their power and aid the development of increasingly effective patient centred health care.