Title: Evidence Based Social Care
Authors: Brian Sheldon and Rupatharshini Chilvers
Publisher: Russell House Publishing Ltd
Price: £11.95 (plus £1.50 delivery)
ISBN: 1-898924-84-8
Publication: Already available

The movement calling for evidence based care is strong is health and social care, what is less clear is whether this is translated into action. This slim volume (86 pages excluding appendices) documents a project aimed at measuring the present level of use of evidence and prospects for future implementation. The survey emanating from the Centre for Evidenced Based Social Care at the University of Exeter is large enough to ensure validity and encourage readers to act on their findings.

The book starts with a review of the history of evidence-based care and an exploration of the concept. Any one unsure of what evidence based care means could do worse than study this section. Perhaps a more critical evaluation of levels of evidence rather than a placid acceptance that randomised controlled trials have the answers would have been useful. In particular some discussion of the place of qualitative methods would have improved this section.
The vast majority of the book is taken up by reporting the findings of the survey. Overall they report that whilst things are not good there is some room for confidence. It seems that much care is based on either professional judgement or perhaps just tradition, however if given the opportunity care professionals are will to learn how to appraise and use evidence in their everyday practice.
The style that the book is written in makes it accessible and easy to read my only small criticism is that the authors seem to claim truth for things that seem to be supported only by anecdote or even opinion. This seems a little strange in a book supporting evidence-based practice.

Evidence Based Social Care was reviewed by Patric Devitt, Psynergy consulting.