The shortage of health workforce in rural and remote areas has been commonly concerned by every country around the word. It is one of world health issues, challenging the aspirations of achieving equity. In this regard, WHO developed the Global Policy Recommendations to improve the accessibility of the health workforce in rural and remote areas through improved retention. This article focuses on the key steps of the policy guideline developed from evidence-based medicine methodology and from angle of guideline development, mainly about background, issues, evidence retrieval and selection, quality grading of evidence, and the forming of recommendation plan, in order to further explore how to correctly understand, obtain, evaluate and apply currently available research evidence, and how to use the GRADE system to make scientific and feasible recommendations in the decision-making process, emphasizing the importance of evidence and the GRADE system in the evidence-based health decision-making.
Objective To explore the factors which affect shared decision-making and develop strategies to get patients actively involved in clinical decision-making. Methods We conducted a survey on 566 patients of a Class A Hospital in Sichuan with group random sampling method. The data were collected by the use of anonymous selfadministered questionnaires. We used SPSS 10.0 to analyse the data. Results A total of 600 questionnaires were distributed at random, of which 565 were completed. There were 68% patients who had some knowledge of the disease, and 93% who were willing to participate in clinical decision-making. The patients’ biggest concerns were: treatment effect, cost and doctors’ skills. The biggest difficulties that patients worried about were: long-time waiting in out-patient departments and limited time to communicate with doctors. Conclusion As more and more patients would like to involve in shared decision-making, doctors need to provide patients with more choices and help them make a right decision in their treatment.
Objective To investigate the decision-making situation of doctors in the township hospitals in Gaolan, Gansu province, and to discuss its scientificity and rationality. Methods Self-designed questionnaire was adopted to investigate the clinical decision-making situation of 108 doctors from 7 township hospitals in Gaolan county. The investigation contained three parts as follows: basic information of respondents, general information of clinical decision-making evidence, and comparison between respondents’ decision-making situation and current best clinical evidence. Results Among the total 108 questionnaires distributed, 89 valid were retrieved. The feedback showed that 79% of the doctors diagnosed and treated patients in accordance with medical textbooks; 53% took curative effect into consideration in the first place; 33% failed to consider patients’ willingness properly when making clinical decisions; and 52% made clinical therapy regimen for common diseases based on the evidence which was different from that in BMJ published Clinical Evidence. Conclusion While making clinical decisions, doctors in the township hospitals do not adequately refer to the best clinical evidence as their decision-making basis, and fail to take patients’ value and willingness into consideration properly. It is necessary to promote the concept of evidence-based medicine and spread the best evidence in the township health departments.
Objective To provide evidence for establ ishing a health care system for pregnant women after disasters by evidence-based evaluation on the comparison of programs in different countries of the world. Methods We electronically searched The Cochrane Library (Issue 2, 2008), MEDLINE (1966 to June 2008), EMbase (1984 to June 2008), VIP ( 1989 to June 2008), CBM ( 1978 to June 2008), Wangfang database (1997 to June 2008), CNKI (1994 to June 2008) and handsearched Journals such as Chinese Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology to identify l iteratures and guidel ines on pregnant women healthy care system after calamity. The qual ity of l iteratures and guidel ines was assessed. Results A total of 293 studies were searched, of which 25 studies were identified with the focuses on the consequence of pregnancy, development of fetus and first-aid of injuries of pregnant women. We found the studies on pregnant women’s health care were l imited, and most of them were retrospective and cohort studies, which was related to the paroxysmal ity, rarity and complexity of the disaster.? Conclusions The high proportion of pregnant women among displaced persons underscores the importance of examining how behavioral changes and difficulties in access to health care influencing the maternal and infant health, which needs comprehensive planning and arrangement.
Objective To provide scientific evidence for the establishment of medical specialist system in China by investigating the history, current situation, problems and countermeasures of medical specialties training at home and aboard. Method The principle and theroy of evidence-based medicine were adopted. The information before Dec. 31, 2003 of Pubmed, CBM, official website, some journals, most frequently used search engines and medical monograph were systematically reviewed. Included literatures were assessed and graded according to the pre-defined criterias. Results A total of 1 319 studies (1 298 in English, 21 in Chinese) were included, among which only 6 were related to the classification of medical specialties. Based on the information from official website of USA, Canada, UK, Singapore, Australia and China (including HK and Taiwan), it showed that China has the largest number of medical specialties, followed by that of USA. In China, the number of medical specialties has more than that of the disciplines in clinical field, which was followed by resident training programs. Some specialties were duplicate, or not international standardized. Conclusions The classification of medical specialties should be developed consecutively, which comprehensively considered the international trend, characteristics of doctor training and the current situation. Specialties whose training program are well-established and developed should initiate firstly. Others will be put into practice gradually after being fully exprienced.