Evaluation of the Evidence-Based practice Attitude and utilization SurvEy for complementary and alternative medicine practitioners.
BACKGROUND
This paper describes the development of the Evidence-Based practice Attitude and utilization SurvEy (EBASE), which was designed to measure complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) practitioner attitude to and utilization of evidence-based practice (EBP).


OBJECTIVE
The aim of this study was to evaluate the validity and reliability of the EBASE as a measure of CAM practitioner skill, attitude and use of EBP in order to adequately inform clinicians and researchers about this comprehensive survey tool.


METHODS
EBASE and the clinical effectiveness and EBP questionnaire (EBPQ) were distributed to nine experts in CAM education, research, questionnaire design and/or EBP. Responses to these questionnaires were used to evaluate the content validity, convergent validity, test-retest reliability and internal consistency of EBASE.


RESULTS
EBASE has found to have good internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha = 0.84) and acceptable test-retest reliability (ICC = 0.578-0.986). The instrument also demonstrated good content validity (CVI = 0.899), and adequately measured practitioner skill and utilization of EBP when compared to the EBPQ.


CONCLUSIONS
The current study supports the validity and reliability of EBASE as a measure of CAM practitioner skill, attitude, experience and training in, as well as barriers and facilitating factors of EBP.
Leach
Matthew J
MJ
School of Health Sciences, University of South Australia, Adelaide, SA, Australia. matthew.leach@unisa.edu.au
Gillham
David
D
D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D001315:Australia; D002983:Clinical Competence / Q000592:standards; D000529:Complementary Therapies / Q000458:organization & administration; D032882:Comprehension; D019091:Critical Pathways; D055317:Evidence-Based Practice / Q000193:education / Q000458:organization & administration; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D029001:Herbal Medicine; D006705:Homeopathy; D006801:Humans; D008516:Medicine, Chinese Traditional; D009324:Naturopathy; D017410:Practice Guidelines as Topic; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires / Q000592:standards*