Clinical Physician Assistant Students’ Perceptions of Evidence-Based Medicine Resources: A Cross-Sectional Examination

Abstract

Evidence-based medicine (EBM) instruction is required for physician assistant (PA) students. As a follow-up to an initial didactic year survey, this study seeks to understand which attributes of EBM resources clinical PA students find most and least useful, their self-efficacy utilizing medical literature, and their usage of EBM tools in the clinic. Results indicate that students preferred UpToDate and PubMed. PA students valued ease of use, which can inform instructors and librarians. Respondents utilized EBM tools daily or a few days a week, underscoring the importance of EBM tools in real-world scenarios. After their clinical year, students felt moderately confident utilizing the medical literature, emphasizing EBM training.

Keywords:

• Bibliographic database
• clinical instruction
• didactic instruction
• evidence-based medicine
• evidence-based practice
• information-seeking behavior
• physician assistant student
• self-efficacy
• user experience

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

Data associated with this article are available in the Open Science Framework at https://osf.io/d8zar/.

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.

Notes on contributors

Brittany R. Heer

Brittany R. Heer, MLIS ([email protected]) is Assistant Professor and Health Sciences Librarian at Butler University Libraries, Indianapolis, Indiana, USA.

Chris Gillette

Chris Gillette, PhD is Associate Professor and Director of Research and Scholarship, Department of PA Studies, Department of Epidemiology and Prevention, Division of Public Health Sciences, Wake Forest University School of Medicine, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, USA.

Anne Geary

Anne Geary, MPAS, PA-C is Assistant Professor at the Department of PA Studies, College of Pharmacy & Health Science, Butler University, Indianapolis, Indiana, USA.

M. Jane McDaniel

M. Jane McDaniel, MS, MLS(ASCP)SC is Assistant Professor Adjunct, Yale School of Medicine Physician Assistant Online Program, New Haven, Connecticut, USA.