Dental and medical practitioners’ awareness and attitude toward evidence based practice in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. A comparative study

Objective

To determine and compare different levels of awareness and attitude toward Evidence-Based Practice (EBP) among dental and medical practitioners in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Methodology

A cross-sectional study using a self-administered questionnaire was completed by 300 practitioners (150 dentists and 150 medical practitioners) working at different academic, governmental, and private sectors in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The questionnaire assessed practitioner’s attitude toward EBP in terms of application and usage; awareness and usage of bibliographic database; history of training in EBP; perception of their understanding of technical terms used in scientific research and opinion with respect to barriers for the use of EBP and Evidence-Based Dentistry in Saudi Arabia.

Results

Of those who were invited to participate, 76.7% returned fully completed questionnaires. Physicians and dentists had an overall favorable attitude toward EBP, with 85% showing interest in the current promotion for this process and 97% agreeing that it improves patients’ care. However, 55% believe that it poses extra demands on already overloaded clinicians. No significant differences were found between dentists and physicians with respect to all attitude items. Significantly fewer dentists indicated understanding the terms: number needed to treat (P = 0.001), odds ratio (P = 0.007), meta-analysis (P = 0.02) and confidence intervals (P = 0.04). Less than half of dentists and physicians received formal training in search strategies (43.8%), critical appraisal (34.4%) and other EBP skills (40.6%), while only 38.8% (significantly lower among dentists; P = 0.009) reported using Evidence-Based Practice guidelines. Significantly more physicians reported having accessibility to Medline through their office computer (P = 0.003).

Conclusion

EBP has not been used to its maximum, despite excellent attitude toward its usage among both physicians and dentists. More efforts should be put into strengthening the skills and use of EBP among all medical practitioners, particularly among dentists, working in Saudi Arabia.