Evidence-Based Practice Process

The evidence-based practice (EBP) process is a structured, five-step way of making practice decisions by integrating the best available research evidence with professional expertise and the client's values and circumstances. Originating in evidence-based medicine as defined by Sackett and colleagues and translated into social work by Eileen Gambrill and others, it reframes EBP not as a fixed list of approved programs but as a transparent decision process — ask, acquire, appraise, apply, assess — that an individual practitioner carries out with and for a particular client.