title: Evidence-based medicine in practice: limiting or facilitating patient choice?
abstract: Facilitating patient choice is an important element in respecting the autonomy of patients. Evidence-based medicine has the potential to contribute to this process by the provision of high quality research-based information, for use by patients and clinicians. In this paper, I analyse the processes of evidence-based medicine in order to identify the ways in which patient choice is affected by decisions made in the development and use of evidence-based guidelines. I argue that despite the potential contribution, the current methods and techniques of guideline production limit rather than facilitate patient choice.
authors.affiliation: Department of General Practice, University of Edinburgh, 20 West Richmond Street, Edinburgh EH8 9DX, Scotland, UK. wendy.rogers@ed.ac.uk
authors.forename: Wendy A
authors.initials: WA
authors.lastname: Rogers
mesh_terms: D002755:Choice Behavior; D019317:Evidence-Based Medicine / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D010358:Patient Participation / Q000379:methods*; D026684:Personal Autonomy; D011050:Policy Making; D017410:Practice Guidelines as Topic / Q000592:standards; D011369:Professional-Patient Relations