title: Implication of evidence-based medicine in prescription guidelines taught to French medical students: current status in the cardiovascular field.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To study how satisfactory the contents of introductory courses in cardiovascular therapeutics, given to medical students in France, are with respect to the concepts of evidence-based medicine.
  
  
  METHODS
  Medical school lecturers were asked to provide written course material used as part of medical school courses. Best-available evidence was classified as existent (including two therapeutic subclasses: indicated and contraindicated), and nonexistent. Four scores (from 0 to 10) were given, according to conformity with best-available evidence, and citation of randomized clinical trials (RCT), meta-analyses and therapeutic objectives.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Thirty-four written documents were obtained from 43 faculties. Although the score (mean +/- SEM) of conformity with best-available evidence was 5.43 +/- 0.28 for the existent best-available evidence class, the corresponding scores for the citation of RCT, meta-analyses, and therapeutic objectives were, respectively, 1 +/- 0.2, 0.16 +/- 0.07, and 2.7 +/- 0.3. The four scores were highest when the best-available evidence belonged to the indicated class, intermediate when best-available evidence was nonexistent, and lowest for the contraindicated class (P < .05). These scores were significantly higher when the printed material was intended for specialists.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Despite some limitations, the extent of agreement with the best-available evidence is only moderate. Pathophysiologic reasoning is largely preferred to justify the choice of therapeutics recommended to medical students.
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Pharmacology, Cardiovascular Hospital, Lyon, France. pn@upcl.univ-lyon1.fr
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Nony
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Cucherat
authors.forename: J P
authors.initials: JP
authors.lastname: Boissel
mesh_terms: D000704:Analysis of Variance; D002318:Cardiovascular Diseases / Q000188:drug therapy*; D011307:Drug Prescriptions / Q000592:standards*; D004501:Education, Medical / Q000592:standards*; D019317:Evidence-Based Medicine; D005602:France; D006801:Humans; D016014:Linear Models; D015201:Meta-Analysis as Topic; D017410:Practice Guidelines as Topic; D016032:Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic