Physiotherapists’ Perception of Evidence-Based Practice

Abstract

Introduction: Evidence-Based Practice (EBP) and Research Utilization (RU) were introduced to physiotherapy more than two decades ago. Physiotherapists with their professional responsibility to provide the best care, will find practical evidence-based physiotherapy a veritable goldmine of useful information. Recently, evidence-based physiotherapy, as a means to improve the quality of physical therapy intervention, has become an interesting topic for the researchers all over the world. However, few studies have researched EBP in Iranian community of physiotherapists. This study was conducted to investigate the perceptions and experiences of EBP among Iranian physiotherapists and the resources of evidence for a duration of 8 months, from 2015 to 2016.
Material and Methods: In this qualitative study, 15 physiotherapists holding at least a BSc. degree and with two years of relevant work experience, participated. Purposeful sampling method was used to recruit the samples. The data were collected via semi-organized in-depth interviews. Content analysis was used to analyze the data according to Cheevakumjorn’s method.
Results: The collected data were divided into two groups containing the definition of EBP and evidence resources for physiotherapists. The participants were divided into two groups. The first group contained the physiotherapists who became familiar with EBP at university. The contributors who had not passed this course at university were included in the second group. The first group provided more detailed definitions and implemented evidence into their clinical work with greater certainty. The data related to the nature of evidence were put into 4 subgroups; experiences of colleagues, acquired knowledge, therapist’s experience, and obtained knowledge through the patients.
Conclusion: Most physiotherapists participating in this study were somewhat familiar with EBP. Since there are some impediments such as poor clinical training, lack of role models during university education, weak research skills and critical evaluation of research, as well as ignoring the importance of life-long learning, most physiotherapists are not able to fully apply evidence in their clinical practice. A comprehensive program for educating the physiotherapists can be an effective method to improve the physiotherapists’ overall level of knowledge as well as the quality of the health care services they provide.