Centre for Evidence-based Veterinary Medicine

Key aims and expertise

‘Evidence-based Veterinary Medicine' is the use of best relevant evidence in conjunction with clinical expertise to make the best possible decision about a veterinary patient. The circumstances of each patient, and the circumstances and values of the owner/carer must also be considered when making an evidence-based decision’

The aim of the Centre for Evidence-based Veterinary Medicine is to increase the awareness and use of evidence-based principles in the veterinary profession. We are a multidisciplinary research team of veterinary and non-veterinary researchers and our work is targeted at increasing the amount and availability of clinically relevant research to veterinarians to enable them to incorporate evidence into decision-making.

Expertise

• Evidence-based Veterinary Medicine
• Study design, epidemiology and statistics
• Literature searching and critical appraisal
• Systematic review
• Practice-based research including clinical trials and other studies
• Database management, free text searching and content analysis
• Qualitative research methods

Current projects

1. Evidence synthesis
   We have established specific methods for searching for veterinary research and synthesising it so it can be used by veterinary clinicians.
   www.bestbetsforvets.org (website to be released Autumn 2013)
   Grindlay DJC, Brennan ML, Dean RS.  Searching the veterinary literature: A comparison of the coverage of the veterinary journals by nine bibliographic databases (2012).  Journal of Veterinary Medical Education 39: 4, 401-412 http://www.biomedcentral.com/1746-6148/9/121
2. Population research – shelter medicine
   We have completed a census of animal shelters in the United Kingdom to establish the extent and cost of unwanted pets. This work has led to a number of initiatives with charities. http://www.biomedcentral.com/1746-6148/8/163
   Tackling the unprecedented increase in stray dogs
   Video about unwanted pets.
3. Practice-based research
   We have an established network of veterinary practices who are working with us on a number of practice-based research projects. This  will enable us to understand the evidence needs of the profession and develop studies to answer important clinical questions.

Significant results

• Searching medline alone is not adequate for identifying clinical veterinary literature, the CAB abstracts database should be used for comprehensive searching.
• In 2010, at least 89,571 dogs and 156,826 cats entered the care of animal shelter organisations.  Of these, 10.4% of dogs and 13.2% cats were euthanized. The total expenditure of charitable organisations involved in this work was in excess of £340 million.