Towards evidence-based medicine for paediatricians

We influence each other in myriad ways. When we are thinking about undertaking evidence-based practice, we tend to focus on selecting the question, finding the studies, understanding the possible biases and coming to a conclusion.

We do not tend to ask, ‘Which questions did we not ask?’ We are not good at really considering, ‘Which outcomes, cases or co-interventions did the authors not report?’ We frequently fail to decide, ‘The ‘possible’ biases here are too great to take this paper and use it.’ And I think we hardly ever consider our original beliefs before doing the process.

When you were asking a clinical question, were you really in equipoise? Did you really ‘not know’ or were you seeking information to confirm or deny your hypothesis? How much did you, prior belief and expectation, alter the judgements of threats to validity, or hidden/unpublished data? Can you go back into the studies and, imagining the alternate...

from Archives of Disease in Childhood current issue https://ift.tt/2RYvB5h