Improved clinical decision making using the evidence-based approach.

Abstract

Clinical experience, technical ability, and intuition are indispensable but no longer sufficient as the sole skills necessary to provide the best outcomes from periodontal and implant treatment. This article describes the evidence-based approach, a comprehensive and rigorous literature evaluation process applied by scientists and clinicians. The methodology was used by the participants in The American Academy of Periodontology World Workshop to assess the evidentiary status of periodontal and implant treatment. The major goal of using the evidence-based approach was to improve treatment decisions by increasing the strength of the inference that practitioners can derive from the base of knowledge contained within the literature.