Evidence-based medicine: UK doctors' attitudes and understanding.

The aim of this paper is to understand UK doctors' attitudes towards evidence-based medicine (EBM) and their self-perceived understanding of specified EBM terms. An online questionnaire was emailed to doctor's emails (identified from the Internet) and the questionnaire URL was promoted on certain websites and electronic newsletters. This article focuses on the EBM questions posed on this research instrument. Respondents were generally positive towards the practice of EBM; for example, 72.3% of UK doctors agreed that EBM improves patient outcomes. Over 85% of respondents were either able to explain (or had some understanding) all the specified EBM terms. Respondents who had graduated from medical school most recently were more positive towards EBM and had a stronger self-perceived understanding of the EBM terms. This research found that doctors were generally in favour of EBM and their understanding of specialist terms was higher than previous published research.