People from childhood to the elderly seek dental care at some point of time, either for a check-up or for treatment following clinical symptoms. Dentists have an obligation to provide the most effective treatment available and use the best methods of disease prevention and diagnosis while taking financial cost and their expertise in consideration. To make clinical decisions, dentists rely on a wealth of resources including own clinical experience, textbooks, journal articles and previous educational experience.
To practice modern dentistry and evidence-based dentistry forms an important asset. For a specific clinical question, the practice of evidence-based guidelines based on scientific evidence ensures highest standards of acceptable therapeutic care. Evidence-based dental practice is a systematic approach for obtaining the best available clinically relevant scientific evidence with the ultimate goal and intent of increasing effectiveness and efficacy in clinical decision-making.
It optimizes the patient’s benefit through the best utilization of dentist’s experience and clinical expertise and on making full use of the most reliable and valid research outcomes. Evidence-based dentistry contrasts with traditional dentistry as it relies on practice based on the evidence for its systematic stringency, coupled with its fundamental validity as a patient-centric optimization of clinical modes of interventions. This is a win-win-situation for both the patient and the dentists as there is improvement in effective use of research evidence in clinical practice, effective uses of resources, relies on evidence rather than authority for clinical decision-making and monitors and develops clinical performance.
The end results are the following:-
The ultimate beneficiaries of EBD are patients who would reap the rewards of better and quality care. The internet allows patients, as well as professionals, access to health care information. The public, however, does not have the tools to evaluate the data adequately and must rely on their educated dentists to help sort fact from fiction. The use of an evidence-based approach can surely help clinicians who want to stay abreast of changes in their areas of health care by assisting them with the selection of relevant articles, and will aid them to efficiently extract and apply the information. Thus improving knowledge and the outcome of the treatment which is beneficial both for the patients and is also of utmost importance because as doctors it is our duty to provide what is in best interest of the patient.
