Biomedical Research

This study was undertaken with the to determine the attitude and perception of primary health care physicians in Jeddah, Ministry of Health, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, towards evidence based medicine and their related educational needs. One hundred seventy selfadministered questionnaires were distributed to all Primary health care centre physicians from 1 July to 30 July 2010. One hundred twenty-eight completed the questionnaires, a response rate of 75.3%. Respondents welcomed evidence based medicine and agreed that its practice will improve patient care. They had a low level of awareness of extracting information from journals, review publications and databases. The majority of unqualified physicians, 100 (78%), were unaware of the Cochrane Database of SystematicReviews. The major barrier to practicing evidence-based medicine was lack of time, 83(64.8%). Fifty four (42.9%) physicians approved using evidence based practice guidelines or protocols developed by colleagues. Despite the physicians having positive attitude towards evidence based medicine, their level of knowledge and skills are still below average. Accordingly, there is a need to start training courses and providing them with the required. Physicians who are board qualified should be encouraged to teach evidence based medicine skills to their non board qualified colleagues and develop local evidence based guidelines.

Author(s): Khalid A. Al-Motairy and Hassan M. Al-Musa
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