JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Evidence-based practice (EBP) is an important aspect of the healthcare education curriculum. EBP involves following the five EBP steps: Ask, Access, Appraise, Apply, and Audit. These five steps reflect the suggested core competencies covered in teaching and learning programs to support future healthcare professionals applying EBP. When implementing EBP teaching, assessing outcomes by documenting the student's performance and skills is relevant. This can be done using mobiles.

Objective:

The aim of this study was to assess occupational therapy students' EBP skills as reported in a mobile app.

Methods:

A cross-sectional design was applied. Descriptive statistics were used to present frequencies, percentages, mean, and range on data regarding EBP skills found in the EBPsteps app. Associations between students' ability to formulate PICO/PICo elements (abbreviation for Population, Intervention, Comparison, and Outcome/Population, Interest, and Context) and identifying relevant research evidence were analysed with the chi-square test.

Results:

Of four cohorts with 150 students, 119 (79%) students used the app and produced 240 Critically Appraised Topics (CATs) in the app. The EBP steps Ask, Access, and Appraise were often correctly performed. The clinical question was formulated correctly in 67% (n=128) of the CATs, and students identified research evidence in 81% (n=195) of the CATs. Critical appraisal checklists were used in 81% (n=195) of the CATs, and most of these checklists were assessed as relevant for the type of research evidence identified (85%, n=165). The least frequently correctly reported steps were Apply and Audit. In 40% (n=95) of the CATs, it was reported that research evidence was applied. Only 61% (n=58) of these CATs described how the research was applied to clinical practice. Evaluation of practice changes was reported in 39% (n=93) of the CATs. However, details about practice changes were lacking in all these CATs. A positive association was found between formulating the Population and Interventions/Interest elements of the PICO/PICo and identifying research evidence (p < 0.001).

Conclusions:

We assessed the students' EBP skills based on how they documented following the EBP steps in the EBPsteps app, and our results showed variations in how well the students mastered the steps. Apply and Audit were the most difficult EBP steps for the students to perform, and this finding has implications and gives directions for further development of the app and educational instruction in EBP. EBPsteps is a new and relevant app for students to learn and practice EBP and can be used for assessing the students' EBP skills objectively.