Abstract:

Background:
In every day practice, clinical physiotherapists have to make decisions about patients´ care, based on the best scientific evidence. This demands the professionals not only to have clinical expertise, but also to be able to search literature systematically, to evaluate it critically and to apply research findings to clinical decision-making. The inability to carry out any of these functions has been pointed out as a barrier to the application of evidence in practice (Jette et al. 2003). On the other hand, the profile of the graduates in Physiotherapy involves an individual that is able to approach this scientific clinical reasoning. To cope with it, the curricula have assigned a special emphasis to scientific training and the development of searching knowledge among Physiotherapy students. In this context, given the barriers identified among professionals to evidence-based practice (EBP) (Jette et al. 2003), a positive predisposition or attitude of learners in the achievement of this goal is necessary.

Purpose:
To determine the beliefs, attitudes, knowledge and behaviours of Physiotherapy undergraduates as they relate to EBP.

Methods:
A prospective survey type study was carried out at the University of Valencia, in which a 25-item adaptation of the Spanish version of the EBP questionnaire (Jette et al. 2003, Guerra et al. 2012) was used. One hundred sixty-three undergraduate students of the Physiotherapy Degree participated voluntarily. Responses to questions concerning beliefs, attitudes, education, knowledge and behaviours regarding EBP, were addressed using a 4-point Likert scale (1=strongly disagree, 4=strongly agree). Items related to access to information required yes/no responses. A descriptive analysis for each item of the questionnaire was performed.

Results:
According to the average scores of items concerning attitudes and beliefs, students agreed that quality of patient care was better when evidence was used (3.51 ± 0.56), that the literature was helpful in the day-to-day practice (3.49 ± 0.51), that the use of evidence in practice was necessary (3.48 ± 0.57) and that EBP is helpful in making decisions about patient care (3.44 ± 0.53). In one month of clinical practice, 83% of students stated they read less than 5 articles and 46% of participants stated they used literature in the process of clinical decision making less than once. The majority of students had access to online information (96.31 %) rather than in paper form and lack of time was found the first barrier to implementing EBP (55.73 % of respondents).

Conclusions:
Physiotherapy students reported a positive attitude about EBP and were interested in and motivated to improve skills to implement EBP. However, confidence in critically reviewing literature and finding relevant research to answer clinical questions need further development.

References:
[1] Guerra J, Bagur C y Girabent M. “Adaptación al castellano y validación del cuestionario sobre práctica basada en la evidencia en fisioterapeutas.” Fisioterapia, vol. 34, no. 2, pp.65-72, 2012
[2] Jette DU, Bacon K, Batty C, Carlson M, Ferland A, Hemingway RD, Hill JC, Ogilvie L and Volk D. “Evidence-based practice: beliefs, attitudes, knowledge and behaviours of Physical Therapists.” Phys Ther vol. 83, pp.786-805, 2003

Keywords:

Evidence-Based Practice, Physiotherapy, competences, undergraduate.