Evidence-Based Practice

Evidence-based practice (EBP) is an interdisciplinary approach to clinical practice that has been gaining ground following its formal introduction in 1992. It started in medicine as evidence-based medicine (EBM) and spread to other fields such as dentistry, nursing, psychology, education, library and information science and other fields. Its basic principles are that all practical decisions made should 1) be based on research studies and 2) that these research studies are selected and interpreted according to some specific norms characteristic for EBP. Typically such norms disregard theoretical and qualitative studies and consider quantitative studies according to a narrow set of criteria of what counts as evidence. If such a narrow set of
Evidence suggests that some therapy approaches work better than others. Criteria for empirically supported therapies have been defined by Chambless and Hollon (1998). Accordingly, a therapy is considered efficacious and specific if there is evidence from at least two settings that it is superior to a pill or psychological placebo or another bona fide treatment. If there is evidence from two or more settings that the therapy is superior to no treatment it is considered efficacious. If there is support from one or more studies from just a single setting, the therapy is considered possibly efficacious pending replication. Following these guidelines, cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) stands out as having the most empirical support for a wide range of symptoms in adults, adolescents, and children. Unfortunately, the term "evidence-based practice" is not always used in such a rigorous fashion, and many psychologists claim to follow "evidence-based approaches" even when the methods they use do not meet established criteria for efficacy (Berke, Rozell, Hogan, Norcross, and Karpiak, 2011). In reality, not all mental health practitioners receive training in evidence-based approaches, and members of the public are often unaware that evidence-based practices exist.
This protocol also requires absence of evidence of harm, at least one randomized controlled study, descriptive publications, a reasonable amount of necessary training, and the possibility of being used in common settings. Missing from this protocol are the possibility of nonrandomized designs (in which clients or practitioners decide whether an individual will receive a certain treatment), the need to specify the type of comparison group used, the existence of confounding variables, the reliability or validity of outcome measures, the type of statistical analysis required, or a number of other factors required by some evaluation