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Evidence-Based Practice: Concepts and Techniques for Translating Research into Practice

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Handbook of Clinical Psychology in Medical Settings

Abstract

Psychologists in medical settings have been trained to incorporate empirical evidence into clinical practice, but very few have been taught formal techniques for doing so. Given the rapid proliferation of scientific evidence in the clinical sciences, there is a growing need among practitioners to be able to access current, clinically relevant research and have specific strategies for integrating these research findings into their clinical work. In response to this need, Evidence-based Medicine took hold in the early 1990's to provide a framework and skill set for translating research into practice, and in 2005, this approach was formally adopted by the American Psychological Association (APA) and called Evidence-based Practice (EBP). In this chapter, we present an overview of EBP with an emphasis on describing five specific steps EBP practitioners can take to quickly locate the most relevant, up-to-date research to answer clinically relevant questions, synthesize the evidence, and integrate it into practice. We then illustrate how we applied these 5 steps of EBP to improve the care of a “real-world” patient with obesity, hypertension and diabetes, emphasizing resources and techniques that are particularly relevant for psychologists who work in medical settings.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    This case is based upon a patient seen by Drs. Collins and Mowery; details have been changed to protect the identity of the patient. At the time the patient was seen, Dr. Mowery was a psychology intern and Dr. Collins was her clinical supervisor.

  2. 2.

    Although the surgical literature has adopted the term “super obese” for those with a body mass index (BMI) more than 50, we used the term “morbid” rather than “super” in our searches to be consistent with the controlled vocabulary of the resources we searched.

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Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to Beverly Thorn, Ph.D. and Melissa Day at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa for their valuable contributions and comments on earlier versions of this chapter.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Colorado Denver, Denver, CO, USA

    Barbara B. Walker PhD

  2. Division of Psychiatry, Geisinger Medical Center, Geisinger Health System, 100 N. Academy Avenue, 17822-1335, Danville, PA, USA

    Charlotte Collins PhD

  3. Geisinger Health System, Danville, PA, USA

    Hope C. Mowery PhD

Authors
  1. Barbara B. Walker PhD
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  2. Charlotte Collins PhD
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  3. Hope C. Mowery PhD
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Barbara B. Walker PhD .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Diabetes, Endocrinology, and Metabolic Diseases, National Institute of Diabetes & Digestive & Kidney Diseases, Bethesda, Maryland, USA

    Christine M. Hunter

  2. Patient-Centered Medical Home Branch, Clinical Support Division, Defense Health Agency, Falls Church, Virginia, USA

    Christopher L. Hunter

  3. Fletcher Allen Health Care, Inc., Montpelier, Vermont, USA

    Rodger Kessler

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Walker, B., Collins, C., Mowery, H. (2014). Evidence-Based Practice: Concepts and Techniques for Translating Research into Practice. In: Hunter, C., Hunter, C., Kessler, R. (eds) Handbook of Clinical Psychology in Medical Settings. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-09817-3_6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-09817-3_6

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