This guide is designed to assist health care professionals to become effective and efficient users of the medical and nursing literature.
The purpose of evidence-based medicine is to find evidence that can be used to make clinical decisions. Evidence based medicine utilizes a hierarchical system that classifies evidence. Clinicians are encouraged to find the highest level of evidence to solve clinical questions. Levels of evidence provides a guide to help prioritize information.
Study design combines trial methodology and statistical analysis with the goal of deriving conclusions that reflect the truth. The most important aspect of a study is the design. A study that was poorly analyzed can be reanalyzed to make new conclusions. There is no recourse in salvaging a study that was poorly designed. A study’s design dictates best methods for analyzing generated data. This makes study design largely responsible for data credibility and scientific integrity of the study.