Survey Report: Clinicians Confident in Ability to Translate Research but Just Barely

Just over half of the respondents to a MedPage Today poll said they can interpret the data presented in published research, but there's no guarantee that study results will be translated into practice.

A recent study indicated that internal medicine residents are ill-prepared to understand -- and translate into daily practice -- the statistics presented in most published research. (See: Medicine Residents Have Poor Grasp of Biostatistics in Clinical Studies)

Yet today's emphasis on evidence-based medicine demands that clinicians be able to interpret often-conflicting studies and modify their practice accordingly.

The ability to do that was highlighted last week when two studies published in the Journal of the American Medical Association presented differing results on drugs in the thiazolinedione class. (See: Ups and Downs of Thiazolinediones for Diabetes Assessed by Dueling Meta-Analyses)

So we asked visitors to MedPage Today whether they felt prepared to interpret conflicting research on a drug's safety.

More than half (55%) of 339 respondents answered Yes, but only 28% said they'd change their practice if their interpretation of the research warranted doing so.

A nearly equal percentage (27%) said they wouldn't change their practice patterns without a published guideline from a reputable authority.

Although the poll wasn't structured to determine whether clinicians were as ill-prepared as the residents to understand biostatistics, 45% of respondents said that sometimes the research is so arcane that it's not readily apparent which, if any, of the studies ought to be translated into practice.

One physician had trouble choosing one answer over another, noting that it would depend on a number of factors relating to the research including the source, the techniques and the study design.

Although he said he'd be most inclined to wait for a published guideline to initiate changes in practice or give up on the survey entirely because it was too arcane, "on rare occasions," he said "there could be enough, and important enough, material presented" to change his practice.