Journal Club is a way forward to adopt Evidence Based Practice among dental House Officers

OBJECTIVES: To identify the improvement in knowledge, presentation skills, critical skills and self-directed learning process during Journal Club platform amidst dental house officers of 2018, 2019 and 2020 after completing one year house job training at Bahria dental College Karachi. METHODS: This cross-sectional study was conducted from Dec- 2018 till Dec-2020. The six items were asked about perception of change for evidence-based process of (knowledge, cognitive, affective and participant domains) after completion of house job training by each cohort. The responses were noted on three point likert scale as agree, neutral and disagree. Total 150 questionnaires were distributed in three cohorts. The SPSS version 23 was used. P-value < 0.05 was considered as statistically significant. RESULTS: Total n=145 house officers had completed the proforma with response rate of 96.65%. The mean age was 24.45 ± SD 0.63 among three groups. There were n=20(14%) males and n=125(86%) females. There was improvement found for knowledge acquisition about relevant literature search among all three groups. Regarding knowledge acquisition of bio-statistics; majority of subjects n=26 (52%) in 2020 group had reported no change and in 2019 cohort n=23(48%) were agreed. Majority n=21(44%) of house officers had reported no change when asked as JC helped in critical thinking in year 2019. CONCLUSION: Knowledge acquisition about relevant literature search, presentation and confidence skills were improved but no significant changes were found in knowledge of biostatistics and critical thinking skills. JC is a convincing platform to learn evidence-based process amid dental house officers.