Increasing Medical and Nursing Students Searching of Current Best Evidence to Answer Clinical Questions

Summary

Translation of new knowledge from research into evidence-informed health care is a shared obligation of the clinical and the scientific communities. Unfortunately, studies of quality of care continue to show that this goal is substantially unrealized. One main barrier is lack of quick and easy identification, appraisal and synthesis of current best evidence. This start with medical and nursing students, which have numerous clinical-related questions daily, but face a large volume of 3000 articles published every day, accessible in many scattered resources.

To address theses problems, McMaster's Health Information Research Unit (Hamilton, Ontario, Canada) has developed and implemented "McMaster Premium LiteratUre Service Federated Search" (MPFS), an online search engine that provides a unique 1-stop search and organized access to current best evidence in daily practice. However additional barriers need to be overcome for students to actually search and use this evidence in their learning and practice. Theses include logistical barriers (time constraints, forgotten questions), as well as educational barriers (eg, lack of awareness of the "architecture" of evidence, limited searching skills, and lack of reference standards among peers for finding best evidence).

In a previous trial, the investigators tested 3 innovative online interventions among clinicians registered to MPFS to overcome these barriers and increase the quantity and quality of searching for current best evidence to answer clinical questions (NCT02038439). The investigators seek to conduct a second randomized trial testing the same 3 interventions, this time among medical and nursing students registered in MPFS.

Conditions

• Medical and Nursing Students' Evidence Retrieval Skills

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Intervention A - Online Clinical Questions Recorder

Students allocated to this intervention will receive access to an online recorder for the clinical questions at the point of care. The recorder is accessible across a wide range of devices including phones, tablets, and desktop computers.

BEHAVIORAL

Intervention B - Online Evidence Retrieval Coach

Students allocated to this intervention will receive online guidance, embedded in the MPFS search engine, in the form of short videos, animations, demos and tips and tricks regarding evidence retrieval.

BEHAVIORAL

Intervention C - Online Audit and Feedback

Students allocated to this intervention will receive feedback on their current search performance compared to their peers, both online when using MPFS as well as by e-mail.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR)

  collaborator OTHER_GOV

• McMaster University

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Thomas Agoritsas, MD · McMaster University

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

OTHER

Masking

SINGLE

Model

FACTORIAL

Eligibility

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2014-09-30

Primary Completion

2017-10-22

Completion

2017-10-22

Countries

• Canada

Study Locations