What exactly do Clinician mean by \”Evidence Based Practice\”. EBP is the \”integration of individual clinical expertise with best available external clinical evidence from systematic research. It is the integration of clinical expertise, patient values, and the best research evidence into decision making process for patient care\” (Sackett D, 1996). For EBP to truly serve as a benchMark Clinical approach, clinicians must ensure that the three element of EBP (Patient Values, Best Research, and Clinical Expertise) are always present in all clinical decision made for clients welfare.
It therefore, constitutes an affront to claim that we engages in EBP when we treat clients values as irrelevant in clinical decisions about their health especially with those clients who have persistent Mental Illness comorbid with prolong substance use disorder. I think that within an individual irrespective of where he / she may be in the spectrum of life, there are values that, if identified and encouraged in them becomes an inroad to their recovery and sustainability. I think that the more Clinicians spend time to Listen and Understand their patient, the better they are in position to provide the best EBP.