Many areas of professional practice, such as medicine, psychology, psychiatry and so forth, have had periods in their pasts where practice was based on loose bodies of knowledge. Some of the knowledge was simply lore that drew upon the experiences of generations of practitioners, and much of it had no truly scientific evidence on which to justify various practices.
In the past this has often left the door open to quackery perpetrated by individuals who had no training at all in the domain, but who wished to convey the impression that they did for profit or other motives.  As the scientific method became increasingly recognized as the means to provide sound validation for such methods, it became clear that there needed to be a way of excluding quack practitioners not only as a way of preserving the integrity of the field (particularly medicine), but also of protecting the public from the dangers of their "cures." Furthermore, even where overt quackery was not present, it was recognized that there was a value in identifying what actually does work so it could be improved and promoted.<unk>  (EBP) is an approach which tries to specify the way in which professionals or other decision-makers should make decisions by identifying such evidence that there may be for a practice, and rating it according to how scientifically sound it may be. Its goal is to eliminate unsound or excessively risky practices in favour of those that have better outcomes.
EBP uses various methods (e.g. carefully summarizing research, putting out accessible research summaries, educating professionals in how to understand and apply research findings) to encourage, and in some instances to force, professionals and other decision-makers to pay more attention to evidence that can inform their decision-making. Where EBP is applied, it encourages professionals to use the best evidence possible, i.e. the most appropriate information available. For example, in medicine, it is used to make clinical decisions for individual patients. EBP promotes the collection, interpretation, and integration of valid, important and applicable patient-reported, clinician-observed, and research-derived evidence. The best available evidence, moderated by patient circumstances and preferences, is applied to improve the quality of clinical judgments and facilitate cost-effective care.
Evidence based practice
Evidence-based medicine
Evidence-based nursing
Good clinical practice
Scientific method
Scientific consensus
Clinical trials terminology
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