Dear Andrew,
Greetings from the east coast of England.
Teaching EBM to lay people – a wonderful idea that should be welcomed.
Lay people is a broad term and from your posting it appears you are
targeting common people from the community and not policy makers at an
organisational level. The message you get across and the level of your
material in your teaching should obviously reflect the background of the
potential audience. But the ultimate objective is to raise awareness of
the approach to evidence based health care so that lay people can
understand and make informed joint decision with their health care
provider regarding the care they would receive.
http://www.annals.org/cgi/content/full/127/1/37
Here is a paper on systematic reviews you might find of some interest.
According to the authors “Consumers can use systematic reviews to help
them make health care decisions. Policymakers can use systematic reviews
to help them make decisions about what types of health care to provide”.
Bero LA, Jadad AR. How consumers and policymakers can use systematic
reviews for decision making. Ann Intern Med. 1997 Jul 1;127(1):37-42.
http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/322/7278/98
Another paper in the BMJ, which might be of use while introducing
systematic reviews to a wider audience. Petticrew M. Systematic reviews
from astronomy to zoology: myths and misconceptions. BMJ. 2001 Jan 13;322
(7278):98-101.
The major challenge in my opinion while teaching to lay people is to make
them realise that their clinicians do not have all the answers without
undermining their confidence in the clinical professions. I have limited
experience in conveying and summarising evidence to health care managers
who cannot be strictly considered as lay audience (in fact they might be
offended by the use of the term – they consider them experts in their own
arena).
For common people you might have to start off by introducing the concept
of research, different types of research methods, their strength and
weaknesses and how we make decisions when no research-based evidence is
available. In my opinion groups of up to 15 discussing issues amongst them
in a structured way with you leading might get them engaged and interested.
You could use published “Summaries of patients” from journals in your
teaching. They could be used as material to learn about various issues.
http://www.annals.org/cgi/content/summary/140/3/175
Here is a summary for patients on a meta analysis published in the Annals
of Internal Medicine.
Hope this of some interest/? Use.
Good luck in your new challenge of taking EBM to the wider world out there.
Cheers & regards,
Badri
Dr.P.Badrinath MD BS M.Phil MPH PhD MFPHMI
SPR in Public Health & Recognised Clinical Teacher,
Southend PCT & University of Cambridge,
Harcourt Avenue, Southend on Sea, UK, SS2 6HE
http://myprofile.cos.com/badrishanthi
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