Examining the evidence base used by optometrists in Australia and New Zealand.
BACKGROUND
The optometrist's role in primary eye care is expanding to include not only diagnosis but also management and co-management of a range of eye diseases and visual disorders. This role calls for evidence-based practice, including an ability to source and reliably assess the various forms of evidence, on which eye care might be based. It is not known whether optometrists registered to practise in Australasia use high or low quality evidence as a basis for their clinical decisions.


METHODS
The present study addressed this question by surveying 3,589 optometrists registered to practise in Australia and New Zealand. A 16-item questionnaire was made available for completion online.


RESULTS
Responses from the 279 optometrists who completed the questionnaire (response rate 7.8 per cent) indicate that, after the patient's history, symptoms and signs, optometrists in our sample place most weight on knowledge and information gained via undergraduate and postgraduate education, including continuing education, as a basis for clinical decision-making.


CONCLUSIONS
These findings highlight the need for current, critically evaluated content in optometric education and suggest that optometrists currently prefer to receive information and knowledge from an educator rather than sourcing and assessing the material independently.
School of Optometry and Vision Science, University of New South Wales, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. c.suttle@unsw.edu.au
Catherine M
CM
Suttle
Isabelle
I
Jalbert
Taghreed
T
Alnahedh
D001315:Australia; D019317:Evidence-Based Medicine / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006282:Health Personnel / Q000193:education*; D006301:Health Services Needs and Demand / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006801:Humans; D009520:New Zealand; D009907:Optometry / Q000193:education; D011787:Quality of Health Care; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014786:Vision Disorders / Q000628:therapy*; D000078329:Workforce