Evidence based medicine workshop. Randomized controlled trial of the efficacy on physician's knowledge and skills

OBJECTIVE: To assess the effect of evidence based medicine (EBM) workshop on knowledge and skills of physicians towards EBM use in the near future, as well as in the long run.

METHODS: This is a randomized controlled trial conducted in the primary health care administration center in Dammam, Saudi Arabia between October and November 2008. Fifty-nine primary care physicians in the intervention group participated in the EBM workshops while 89 physicians from the control group attended other primary health care activities other than EBM workshop. The main outcome was to measure the change in the participants' level of awareness and competencies in EBM components (including formulation of questions, literature searching, critical thinking and appraisal) using a pre-designed questionnaire before, immediately after, and 4 months after the workshop.

RESULTS: Evidence based medicine workshops improved physician's scores in all components of EBM, from 38.9%+/-20.0% at pre-test to 81.4%+/-10.6% post-test, and sustained this improvement to a lesser degree to 66.8%+/-10.0% 4 months post-intervention test (p<0.001 for the differences in all scores).

CONCLUSION: Participating in EBM workshop significantly enhanced physicians' ability to formulate questions, performed literature search, critical appraisal, and applied best-evidence in clinical practice, which retained up to 4 months post-test.