Avaliação Crítica e Implementação Prática da Evidência

Abstract

Evidence Based Medicine (EBM) is generally defined as the conscientious, explicit and judicious use of current best evidence in making decisions about the care of individual patients. In this section devoted to Evidence Based Paediatrics a series of articles about the conceptual, methodological and operational issues linked to the practice of EBM in the field of Paediatrics will be published in the following issues of this journal. In the present article theoretical and practical issues related to the critical appraisal and practical implementation of scientific evidence are discussed. The aim of this article is to present a practical and systematic approach for the critical appraisal of evidence, based on three main aspects: (1) assessment of validity and methodological quality of studies; (2) assessment of scientific and practical impact of results; and (3) assessment of applicability of scientific evidence. We present the most common types of research questions and study designs useful in clinical practice; we discuss levels of evidence and grades of recommendation, the concept of systematic error or bias and its classification are discussed; and finally we present a set of assessment criteria for the evaluation of methodological quality, impact and applicability of scientific evidence.