Evidence-based practice was defined by Sackett in 1996 as “integrating the best research evidence with clinical expertise, patient values and circumstances to make clinical decisions.”
The Sports Physical Therapy Section of the American Physical Therapy Association (APTA) recently published a special issue in the International Journal of Sports Physical Therapy that reviews important topics in bringing evidence to your practice. The international authors provide information for practicing clinicians who want to perform research or learn how to integrate research into practice. The IJSPT is a PubMed-indexed journal with open access.
I was honored to contribute the paper, “Research Designs in Sports Physical Therapy.” My paper includes a discussion on the different research designs including experimental and non-experimental designs. It helps clinicians recognize the appropriate design to answer a specific question.
Other papers in interest in the October 2012 issue include:
- Evidence-based Medicine/Practice in Sports Physical Therapy by Rob Manske, discusses what constitutes evidence-based practice and provides strategies to seek evidence in daily practice. Manske also provides great examples of where to find evidence and how to critically appraise it.
- Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis: A Primer. Swiss researchers Impellizzeri and Bizzini discuss how these types of articles provide the “best evidence” of a body of knowledge on a specific topic.
- Statistical Principles for Prospective Study Protocols: Design, Analysis, and Reporting by Christensen and Langberg of Denmark describe and explain statistical principles for trial protocols in terms of design, analysis, and reporting of findings. They also discuss how to build a trial protocol, emphasizing “rigorous protocol writing that leads to a full manuscript.”
- How to Write a Scientific Article by Barb Hoogenboom and Rob Manske of the USA offers practical suggestions for submitting peer-reviewed articles.
- Avoiding Manuscript Mistakes by Grinstaff and Saliba of the USA provides authors with suggestions to improve their manuscript quality and provide mechanisms to avoid common manuscript mistakes often identified by editors.
If you don’t have time, you don’t have to read all these articles now. Keep the series as a reference for later when you are thinking about performing a study or publishing a paper. This series of articles is an outstanding and FREE resource!