The tools and techniques of evidence-based medicine

Evidence-based medicine is the conscientious, explicit and judicious use of the current best evidence in making decisions about the care of individual patients. Along with individual clinical expertise, it is a required core skill for clinical problem solving and it is considered to be a comprehensive component of the medical curricula. This chapter is a general overview of the steps to be followed by clinicians to search, identify and appraise the best-available evidence that could help them to resolve a particular clinical problem. It includes the principles for the identification of a clinical problem and its translation into a question, and the main sources for searching and locating the best-available evidence. References for guidelines designed for appraisal of the methods used in the original papers and for the interpretation of its results are also provided.