Evidence-Based Practice and Associated Factors among Health Care Providers Working in Public Hospitals, Northwest Ethiopia, 2017

Abstract

Evidence-based practice (EBP) is defined as “the conscientious, explicit, and judicious use of current best evidence for decision making”. But, studies proved that medical practice is still not based on the best available evidence due to different challenging factors. Therefore, this study was aimed to assess the level of EBV and identifying associated factors among health care providers working in public hospitals. Methodologically, we conducted a cross sectional study of 415 randomly sampled health care providers using stratified sampling technique. Data were collected using structured selfadministered questionnaire which was developed by reviewing literatures and by adapting a standardized Melnyk and Fineout-Overholt EBV scale. The collected data were analyzed using SPSS version 23. We used bivariate and multivariate logistic regression models to identify associated factors for evidence based practice. The study revealed that 45% of health professionals were found to have low level of evidence based practice. The factors found to be significantly associated with low level of EBV include the health care provider‟s marital status (Adjusted Odds Ratio) (AOR 2.25, 95% (Confidence Interval) CI: 1.16, 4.36), longer health care providers work experience (AOR 2.72, 95%CI: 1.31, 5.67), and poor health care providers‟ skill (AOR 2.91, 95% CI: 1.70-3.00. We found that significant proportion of health professionals have low evidence based practice. The longer the work experiences with increasing age, the poor health professional skill were the major contributing factors for low EBV. Therefore, multi- sectorial approaches are needed to increase the level of EBV implementation and address the major contributing factors.