The Evidence-Based Practice (EBP) guide explains what EBP is, key concepts and steps involved in EBP, and the different types of clinical evidence. Use the tabs at the top of the page to navigate through the guide.
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The Evidence-Based Pyramid is divided into levels to indicate:
As we ascend the pyramid, the quality of evidence increases. However, study design always has an impact. A well designed cohort study for example, is likely to provide better evidence than a poorly designed randomised controlled trial (RCT). The quality of each individual study still needs to be critically appraised.
As demonstrated by the pyramid above, not all evidence has the same power. In addition, different types of questions are best answered by particular study types (see below).
As you can see in the EBP pyramid, systematic reviews are the highest level of evidence. Most researchers want to find a systematic review to answer their clinical question, as systematic reviews synthesise evidence from all existing studies in a particular area to provide a thorough analysis of the collated results, strengths and weaknesses.
Systematic reviews may or may not include a meta-analysis to summarise and analyse the statistical results from included studies. Researchers should note that systematic reviews have a very different design to narrative reviews, which are only useful for background information as they are designed as opinion reviews with selective illustrations from a literature search.
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