Finding information on clinical effectiveness

This is the third in a series of eight articles analysing the gap between research and practice Series editors: Andrew Haines and Anna Donald There is increasing pressure on healthcare professionals to ensure that their practice is based on evidence from good quality research, such as randomised controlled trials or, preferably, systematic reviews of randomised controlled trials and trials of other study designs. This pressure comes from various sources. The evidence based healthcare movement encourages a questioning and reflective approach to clinical practice and emphasises the importance of lifelong learning. Thus, good access to research based evidence is necessary. Many governments are encouraging the development of evidence based medicine because its advantages are understood, especially in terms of improved efficiency in the delivery of health care through the identification of effective treatments.12 There are also indications that legal decisions may take account of whether research evidence and clinical guidelines were adhered to.34 Better informed consumers may provide another incentive for clinicians to be more aware of research findings. Clinicians will need to be able to access information on clinical effectiveness in order to improve the quality of care and to stay well informed on developments in specialist areas. We examine the resources that are already available to clinicians, strategies for finding and filtering information, and ways of improving dissemination.