title: Undergraduate medical students' perceptions, attitudes, and competencies in evidence-based medicine (EBM), and their understanding of EBM reality in Syria.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Teaching evidence-based medicine (EBM) should be evaluated and guided by evidence of its own effectiveness. However, no data are available on adoption of EBM by Syrian undergraduate, postgraduate, or practicing physicians. In fact, the teaching of EBM in Syria is not yet a part of undergraduate medical curricula. The authors evaluated education of evidence-based medicine through a two-day intensive training course.
  
  
  METHODS
  The authors evaluated education of evidence-based medicine through a two-day intensive training course that took place in 2011. The course included didactic lectures as well as interactive hands-on workshops on all topics of EBM. A comprehensive questionnaire, that included the Berlin questionnaire, was used to inspect medical students' awareness of, attitudes toward, and competencies' in EBM.
  
  
  RESULTS
  According to students, problems facing proper EBM practice in Syria were the absence of the following: an EBM teaching module in medical school curriculum (94%), role models among professors and instructors (92%), a librarian (70%), institutional subscription to medical journals (94%), and sufficient IT hardware (58%). After the course, there was a statistically significant increase in medical students' perceived ability to go through steps of EBM, namely: formulating PICO questions (56.9%), searching for evidence (39.8%), appraising the evidence (27.3%), understanding statistics (48%), and applying evidence at point of care (34.1%). However, mean increase in Berlin scores after the course was 2.68, a non-statistically significant increase of 17.86%.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The road to a better EBM reality in Syria starts with teaching EBM in medical school and developing the proper environment to facilitate transforming current medical education and practice to an evidence-based standard in Syria.
authors.affiliation: University of Damascus, Damascus, Syria. fares.alahdab@gmail.com
authors.forename: Fares
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Alahdab
authors.forename: Belal
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Firwana
authors.forename: Rim
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Hasan
authors.forename: Mohamad Bassam
authors.initials: MB
authors.lastname: Sonbol
authors.forename: Munes
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Fares
authors.forename: Iyad
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Alnahhas
authors.forename: Ammar
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Sabouni
authors.forename: Mazen
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Ferwana
mesh_terms: D004504:Education, Medical, Undergraduate / Q000379:methods*; D004521:Educational Measurement / Q000592:standards; D019317:Evidence-Based Medicine / Q000193:education*; D005260:Female; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D013337:Students, Medical / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D013593:Syria