Evidence-Based Practice Awareness And Knowledge levels Among Health Care Practitioners in Saudi Tertiary Hospitals (Preprint)
UNSTRUCTURED Estimating the awareness levels of Evidence-Based Practice (EBP) among health care providers is currently active area of research. This study main objective is to evaluate the medical staff awareness about Evidence-Based Practice and its constitutes , tools and resources at Saudi General Tertiary Hospitals. The study was carried out at King Saud Medical City (KSMC) in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The research main data were collected predominantly using a cross-sectional survey questionnaire. The research results showed that showed that majority of participants have a good understanding of the term EBP (59.7%) ,while having a vague idea (34.7%) and with No idea are only (5.6%). Although of a high percentage of the participants realize the concept of EBP , levels of knowledge about various EBP tools vary considerably The less known EBP tools were for: Confidence interval (34.2%) , and P- value tool , Odd ratio ,and Heterogeneity (31.9) followed by Absolute Risk (29.8 %) and Sensitivity tool (27.7%). Among the most known EBP tools with “Good Understanding” level were for: Meta Analysis (27.7%) followed by Systematic review and Publication Bias both at 25.3%) level . The Chi-Square tests for the correlation of specialty rank and awareness of EBP indicates that there is no statistically significant association between Profession specialty rank or gender with EBP awareness or its tool knowledge levels . Main results from this research showed that Evidence-Based Practice awareness at King Saud medical city hospitals is at acceptable level. Furthermore, more intensive education and training and enhancement of EBP resources IT medical education resources are needed to increase its knowledge and understanding , and to support the diffusion of Evidence-Based Practice in daily practice.