The case against ‘the evidence’: A different perspective on evidence-based medicine
- 2 January 2002
- journal article
- Published by Royal College of Psychiatrists in The British Journal of Psychiatry
- Vol. 180 (1), 8-12
- https://doi.org/10.1192/bjp.180.1.8
Abstract
Background: An evidenced-based approach to psychiatry is playing an increasingly prominent role in treatment decision-making for individual patients and for populations. Many doctors are now critical of the emphasis being placed on ‘the evidence’ and concerned that clinical practice will become more constrained.Aims: To demonstrate that evidence-based medicine is not new, sources of evidence are limited and psychosocial aspects of medicine are neglected in this process.Method: Some of the literature is reviewed. Ideas and arguments are synthesised into a critical commentary.Results: These are considered under four headings: evidence-based medicine is not new; what evidence is acceptable; the doctor as therapist; and the emergence of a new utilitarian orthodoxy.Conclusions: It is agreed that a degree of professional consensus is necessary. However, too great an emphasis on evidence-based medicine oversimplifies the complex and interpersonal nature of clinical care.This publication has 27 references indexed in Scilit:
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