Dental Assisting and Dental Hygiene

According to the American Dental Association, evidence-based practice is “an approach to oral health care that requires the judicious integration of systematic assessments of clinically relevant scientific evidence, relating to the patient’s oral and medical condition and history, with the dentist’s clinical expertise and the patient’s treatment needs and preferences.”

1. Ask a clinical question in PICO format

2. Acquire the evidence

3. Appraise the evidence

4. Apply the evidence to clincal practice

P = Patient, population, or problem

I = Intervention

C = Comparison or control (if any)

O = Outcome

Use the PICO Worksheet to build your question and search strategy.

In adults with periodontitis (P) what is the effect of manually flossing (I) compared to using interdental aids (C) on gingivitis scores (O)?

TIP: When constructing a search strategy, it's best to use just the keywords representing the population/problem and intervention, not keywords for the comparison and outcome. Including all will likely retrieve few results.

For example, periodontitis and flossing  would be the two concepts to include in your search, not interdental aids and gingivitis scores.

These tutorials are good overviews of evidence-based practice but they may mention resources not available at EFSC.

Use any of these databases to search for evidence based practice information. Many articles are available in full-text. Some resources require log in.

Log in using your Titan User Name and Password.

Start your search for evidence-based practice information with the Cochrane Library. For how to search Cochrane Library, see the video and PDF guides below.

Other databases to search: