Evidence-Based Practice: beliefs, attitudes, knowledge and behaviours of Sri Lankan physiotherapists

Purpose: This study describes physiotherapists’ self-reported attitudes, beliefs, knowledge, and barriers to Evidence-Based Practice (EBP).

Methodology: In a cross-sectional online survey, practising physiotherapists were invited to fill a Google form with Likert scales, which measured the required components. Descriptive and chi-square tests were performed to analyse data.

Results: The majority of 108 participants were female (56.5%). Most physiotherapists (63%) belong to the age group 30-39 years. It was found that 90% of participants had positive attitudes towards EBP. Although 89.8% of participants had learnt EBP during their academic programmes, complete awareness of the terminology of EBP was poor. More participants (57.4%) revealed that they received support to use current research in their practice, but 51% did not have access to current research. Insufficient time was the main barrier to practising EBP (26%) in clinical settings. Implementing EBP in their clinical practice was low (74 %) despite training during their academic programme.

Conclusion: It is noted that there was lack of implementation of EBP even though participants had a positive attitude towards EBP. It is recommended to have ongoing training and national-level policies to enhance EBP in physiotherapy clinical practice in Sri Lanka.