Evidensdebatten og profesjonsutøving i ergoterapi og psykisk helsearbeid

Prosjektsamandrag

There has been a change in the way health care services in Norway has been legitimized from a medical towards a more community centred, user oriented and evidence-based approach. In current policy statements the aim of achieving an effective, standardized and “correct” practice is sometimes presented in opposition to the norm of individualized and “good” practice. Clinical practice guidelines represent central tools for implementing evidence- based standards. As cornerstones in the evidence-based practice movement, systematic reviews and meta-analysis have the greatest impact on clinical decision making and health care systems. At the same time, policy makers and practitioners are gradually becoming aware of the limitations of systematic reviews of high-quality randomized controlled trials as the exclusive evidence base for informing practice. Accordingly, metasynthesis has increased in significance given the increased need for research that recognizes the importance of service users’ perspectives, complexity, and settings. The qualitative health research literature echoes epistemological debates over how metasynthesis can be justifiable source of evidence. A central argument is that metasynthesis represents a sophisticated and well designed technique for integrating findings from a number of interrelated qualitative studies. In this way, metasynthesis can provide both in-depth and broad coverage of a topic. Thus, from different angels, the studies designed within this project were aimed to: 1) explore how health care professionals balance between biomedical and more phenomenological oriented goals in their service, 2) how they respond to the calls for offering evidence-based practice, and 3) to develop a better understanding of the process of conducting a metasynthesis and show how metasynthesis can be a convincing form of evidence that increases credibility and stimulates the further development of a given intervention or approach.