Author(s): Sheena Reilly; Alison Perry; Jenni Oates; Jacinta Douglas

Science

This text is designed to introduce and instruct the speech pathology profession about the concept of evidence based practice (EBP) and how it applies to the profession. It aims to demonstrate how to apply the principles of EBP to research and to education and shows that although the process of incorporating good findings into practice is not straight-forward, it is possible that research makes a difference to patient outcomes. The need to train both under and postgraduate students in EBP is emphasized, thereby enabling speech pathologists to identify and appraise high quality, clinically relevant research and apply the principles of EBP to their clinical practice.