Topic outline

  • Welcome

    Hi. This area of QMPlus is to provide support to clinical and non-clinical teachers at the Institute of Dentistry in helping to deliver evidence-based dentistry to undergraduate students. 

    This doesn't 'run' as a course and so the content is organised to address different elements of EBD practice and teaching. Please dip into them as you wish and feel free to ask me questions. 

    My vision is that 'doing' EBD becomes as much a part of clinical dentistry at Barts and The London as giving local anaesthetic or taking a decent history. It will mean many people learning new skills. It is an iterative process and so don't feel overawed by all the ideas that flow through this content. 

  • The rationale for, and basics of, EBD

    Files: 3

  • Asking questions

    “The scientist is not a person who gives the right answers, he's one who asks the right questions.”
    ― Claude Lévi-Strauss
    File: 1 Text and media areas: 2

  • Searching for research evidence


    In order to find the best available evidence you need to know where to look and how to search effectively.
    Text and media areas: 3 Books: 2

  • Keeping informed without looking too hard

    Although the EBD mantra asks us to ask a question and search for evidence, evidence can sometimes find us without us looking for it, though in turn we might then search for additional - or better - evidence.
    Text and media areas: 2

  • Assessing evidence

    This section introduce critical appraisal and some tools to help do it - in particular the CASP tool.
    Files: 7 Text and media areas: 3 URL: 1

  • Using evidence on clinic

    It seems that unless we integrate EBD teaching with what we do on clinic students and clinicians fail to use it. So educational prescriptions have been used in medical and dental undergraduate and postgraduate teaching to help students to think critically about what they are doing on the clinic.

    The concept is to ask a structured question with a tutor, to go away and look for the evidence (though this can easily be done using a smartphone when a patient fails to attend, for example) and then to report back on what they have found.
    Files: 3 Text and media area: 1

  • The difficulties of using evidence in practice

    Clinical practice and decision-making will always involve more than just research evidence and there will always be barriers to any new innovation, however well-supported by good quality evidence. Here are some background resources around barriers to research use and potential techniques to help improve uptake.
    URL: 1 Files: 4