Review article
Evidence - Based Dentistry: Do We Know What It Means?
Robert Ćelić
Susan E. Sutherland
Abstract
To practice in an evidence-based dentistry manner, practitioners must be able to formulate a clear question, find the best available evidence efficiently, evaluate the evidence systematically and, if it is relevant and credible, apply the results of the appraisal to their practice. Materials, instruments, techniques, and therapies change so fast that most of us have difficulty keeping up with their names, much less the details of their use. As electronic technology (Internet, CD-ROM, and DVD) expands, information retrieval is increasingly easy. Patients have access to the same data that doctors do in many cases, and as their knowledge levels increase, so do their expectations and demands. Evidence-based dentistry closes the gap between clinical research and real world dental practice and provides dentists with powerful tools to interpret and apply research findings. Evidence-based dentistry process is not a rigid methodological evaluation of scientific evidence that dictates what practitioners should or should not do. Rather, the evidencebased dentistry process is based on integrating the scientific basis for clinical care, using thorough, unbiased reviews and the best available scientific evidence at any one time, with clinical and patient factors to make the best possible decision(s) about appropriate health care for specific clinical circumstances. Evidence-based dentistry relies on the role of individual professional judgment in this process.
Keywords
dentistry; evidence-based medicine
Hrčak ID:
2569
URI
Publication date:
15.6.2003.
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