Awareness, attitude and practice of evidence-based medicine among primary health care doctors in Jordan.

Objectives: To assess the awareness, attitude and knowledge towards evidence-based medicine (EBM) among primary health care doctors in Jordan and to identify the perceived barriers for practising EBM.

Methods: A simple random sample of 34 comprehensive primary health care centres was selected from a list of 64 centres in Jordan using random number table. A family doctor visited all selected centres and invited the available doctors to participate in the study. Participants were asked to fill the self-administrated questionnaire that was designed to assess beliefs and attitude of doctors towards EBM.

Results: Of the total 220 clinicians approached, 202 (91.8%) completed the questionnaire. About 80.7% welcomed promotion of EBM and 91.1% agreed on that research findings are helpful in daily management of patients. About 85.1% stated that practising EBM improves patient care, 68.3% stated that EBM reduces health care costs, 74.8% stated that EBM improves quick knowledge update, 93.6% reported that the doctor-patient relationship is affected positively by practising EBM. About 60.9% reported that they know the concept of EBM and 56.1% reported that they ever used the EBM. Patient overload, limited resources and facilities, and the absence of an effective computer system were the most commonly reported barriers to the implementation of EBM.

Conclusions: In spite of the positive attitude towards EBM, this study demonstrated numerous personal, interpersonal and institutional barriers towards implementing EBM which necessitate prompt action to formulate a national plan to overcome such barriers.