PURPOSE

This study was carried out to investigate the extent of research use and to identify practitioner, organizational and research characteristics that are associated with EBP information seeking by physiotherapists in teaching hospitals in south western Nigeria.

RELEVANCE

Results showed that the EBP information seeking behavior of physiotherapists in teaching hospitals in south western Nigeria is not good enough. Further actions can be taken to improve the EBP information seeking behavior of physiotherapists in teaching hospitals in south western Nigeria.

PARTICIPANTS

Seventy two physiotherapists from six teaching hospitals in the south-western geopolitical zone of Nigeria participated in the study.

METHODS

An adapted version of the Evidence-Based Practice (EBP) Questionnaire for Walking Rehabilitation Post-stroke was used for data collection. It sought to measure the performance of EBP activities among physical therapists and to identify barriers at the practitioner, organizational, and research levels.

ANALYSIS

Data were summarised using descriptive statistics of frequencies, percentages, mean, standard deviation and range. Logistic regression was used to determine association between variables. The α-level was set at 0.05.

RESULTS

Majority (91.7%) of the participants had a good attitude and belief towards EBP, were interested in EBP (87.5%), agreed that they have a role to play in EBP (94.4%), claimed to have educational preparation for EBP (68.1%) and graded themselves well in the extent to which they can organize and execute activities related to EBP (95.8%). A good proportion of the participants work for 31-40 hours per week (47.2%), see 5-10 patients per day (76.4%) and see two to five stroke patients (47.3%). Organizational resources and support for the implementation of EBP seemed poor and majority (87.5%) of the participants perceived that the organizational and peer support is low. On the average, participants spent 68.8% of total work time on patient care, 10.2% on research, 11.4% on teaching and 9.8% on administration. The highest proportion of the participants (48.6%) read/reviewed research/literature related to their practice, used MEDLINE or other databases to search for practice-related literature/research or used professional literature and research findings in the process of decision making only two to five times in a typical month. Insufficient time (63.9%), lack of organizational mandate (55.6%) and lack of information resources (45.8%) were the 3 greatest barriers to participants’ updating their clinical practice with new knowledge while internet access at work (55.6%), journal subscription at work (45.8%) and workshops (43.1%) were the 3 activities or resources that would most effectively help them to update their clinical practice with new knowledge. Factors that significantly influenced EBP information seeking among the participants (p<0.05) include number of patients seen per day, educational preparation for EBP, supervision of physiotherapy students and participation in research.

CONCLUSION

This study showed that the EBP information seeking behavior of physiotherapists in teaching hospitals in south western Nigeria is not good enough.

IMPLICATIONS

Further actions need to and can be taken to improve the EBP information seeking behavior of physiotherapists in teaching hospitals in south western Nigeria.

KEYWORDS

Evidence based practice, Information seeking behavior, Physiotherapists.