Institute:Office of National Coordinator (ONC) Workforce Training Curriculum
Component:The Culture of Health Care
Unit:Evidence-Based Practice
Lecture:Phrasing the clinical question
Interventions
Slide content:Using EBM to Assess Questions about Interventions Questions concerning benefit of a clinical intervention to treat or prevent disease Can include drug therapy, diet therapy, surgery, alternative medicine, and so on Best evidence comes from a randomized controlled trial (RCT) or meta-analysis of RCTs Patients similar in all regards with exception of intervention applied 4
Slide notes:4 This lecture discusses interventions and how they are assessed in evidence-based medicine. Questions about interventions address treatment or therapy as well as the other ways we intervene to improve health and eliminate disease. When evidence-based medicine is used to assess questions about interventions, the concern is about the benefit of a clinical intervention to treat or prevent disease. This assessment approach can be applied to any intervention, such as drug therapy, diet therapy, surgery, and complementary and alternative medicine. The best evidence for assessing an intervention comes from a randomized controlled trial (RCT) [R-C-T] or, even better, from a meta-analysis of multiple RCTs. A key aspect of an RCT is that patients are similar in all regards with the exception of the intervention applied. This condition is the ideal; however, its important to carefully assess this aspect when appraising a study because the ideal conditions are not always present.