JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

EBM teaching programs are popular and widely available, they have successfully incorporated in medical curriculum and shown to be effective in helping clinicians search for, retrieve and apply evidence. In Ethiopia, teaching of the EBM is not yet a component of the undergraduate medical curriculum. In particular, little is known about the levels of knowledge and attitude regarding EBM, their ability to access and understand evidence, their information about statistical terms among medical interns. Thus, it is required that the current state of EBM to be understood in order to plan long-term educational programs.

Objective:

The objective of this study was to assess the knowledge and attitude towards EBM and its associated factors among medical interns in Amhara regional state teaching hospitals, Northwest Ethiopia.

Methods:

An institution based cross-sectional survey was conducted from March to April, 2020. Simple random sampling with proportional allocation was used. A total of 403 medical interns were included in the study. Multi-variable logistic regression analysis method was used to identify the factors associated with the knowledge and attitude of medical interns towards EBM.

Results:

From a sample of 423 medical interns, 403 completed the questionnaire making a response rate of 95.3%. Out of the respondents, 291 (72.2%) were males. The mean age of the participants were 24.7 ± 0.97 SD years and 324 (80.4%) had never received any training related to EBM. Most, 276 (68.5%) of the participants have their own computer and 355 (88.1%) have an internet access. The level of good knowledge and favorable attitude were 57.1% and 68.0% respectively. The variables associated with the level of EBM knowledge were found to be previous EBM training (AOR=2.947, 95% CI = 1.648-5.268), understanding of sensitivity (AOR= 2.836, 95% CI = 1.824-4.408) and internet access (AOR=2.914, 95% CI = 1.494-5.685). The multivariable analysis also showed a positive association between use of electronic database to make clinical decision (AOR=1.808, 95% CI= 1.143-2.861) and knowledge of absolute risk reduction (AOR =2.750, 95% CI= 1.105-6.841) with attitude of medical interns towards EBM.

Conclusions:

Medical interns have limited knowledge and understanding of key concepts of EBM, but a relatively positive attitude towards the concepts. There is a need to setup EBM journal club, which helps to increase awareness and use of evidence, as well as assist medical interns and other clinical staffs to ensure the correct application of EBM in to clinical practice.