Where there is no evidence - search skills
Bandolier
often finds itself drawn into discussions about how well healthcare
professionals are able to find and appraise evidence. A general, if anecdotal,
conclusion reached is that:
- Older professionals have great difficulty in finding evidence, and if presented with it find great difficulty in knowing whether the evidence found is good or bad.
- Recently qualified professionals whose training included searching and appraisal skills can be very good indeed at both finding and appraising evidence.
- Recently qualified professionals whose training did not include searching and appraisal skills are no better than their older colleagues in finding and appraising evidence.
The
implication is that training in finding and appraising evidence improves
professional skills, and that should work through into better use of evidence
in practice. What's the evidence for that? A new review [1] tells us that
there's not much evidence for the finding part.
Systematic review
The
review from Chorley searched an astonishing eleven different sources, from the
Cochrane Library to the Internet. It looked for randomised and other trials of
educational interventions for improving on-line searching abilities using short
periods, one to eight hours, of training, compared with another course.
Results
Three
trials were found, all published since 1998, and in all the participants were
medical students or junior doctors. Two were randomised, and only one had more
than 100 participants.
Two
trials, including the largest and possibly the best, found that skills improved
after the training course, though benefits were not large, nor were they
unambiguous.
Comment
There
is some evidence that training in search skills works, but we really
don't know what amount or type of training produces the best results, and
in whom. Given that much effort is being expended in critical appraisal and
searching skills programmes, we need more and better research on how best to do
it.
Reference:
- A Grag, KM Turtle. Effectiveness of training health professionals in literature search skills using electronic databases – a critical appraisal. Health Information and Libraries Journal 2003 20: 33-41.