In the beginning of the 1990s evidence-based medicine was introduced to oppose eminence-based medicine. Physicians were challenged to use evidence from clinical research in their decision making and move beyond their intuition and clinical experience. Good doctors, however, are supposed to use both, their clinical expertise and the best possible evidence, in order to make decisions with the best possible outcomes for patients. This means that they need to gather information about individual patients’ conditions and wishes and search for the relevant research data that can be applied to the case at hand. Clinicians initiate these processes based on their knowledge and experience and have to integrate the outcomes in deciding what to do.

In this session we will discuss evidence-based decision making in both medicine and clinical psychology. What is the value of evidence-based decision making in daily practice, both in diagnostic reasoning and in management decisions? What kind of evidence is available and do clinicians actually use it? What is the best evidence? How to involve patients in a shared decision making process? When to adhere to guidelines or discard them? What is the interplay between intuitive and deliberate processes in evidence-based decision making? What is the relation between evidence and intuitive knowledge? How to enhance effective evidence-based practice and how to teach it?

Margje van de Wiel en Erik Stolper.

Accepted for presentation joint meeting of COGITA network and Clinical Decision Making Workshop in Gottingen (2018 May).