Devries RG. The warp of evidence-based medicine: lessons from Dutch maternity care.
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF HEALTH SERVICES 2005;
34:595-623. [PMID:
15560425 DOI:
10.2190/rr53-wq0a-w528-tyce]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 12] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/22/2022]
Abstract
Most critiques of evidence-based medicine (EBM) focus on the scientific shortcomings of the technique. Social scientists are more likely to criticize EBM for its ideological biases, a criticism that makes sociological sense but is difficult to substantiate. Using evidence from the scientific debate over maternity care in the Netherlands--where nearly one-third of births take place at home--the author shows that research evidence is the product of a researcher's assumptions about the practice in question. In the case of maternity care in the Netherlands, ideological differences about the most appropriate way to give birth--based in the researcher's clinical experience--give rise to irresolvable disagreements about what constitutes evidence and how that evidence is to be interpreted. "Evidence" cannot settle scientific disputes in any simple way. Rather, it becomes a rhetorical justification for whatever particular groups were going to do anyway. Scientific evidence rests on clinical practice, which in turn is rooted in structural arrangements and cultural ideas.
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