Evidence-Based Medicine (EBM) is an approach that aims to solve health problems through decision-making based on the best scientific evidence, patient values and preferences, and clinical experience. To this end, health professionals must obtain knowledge and skills that allow them to formulate clinical questions, carry out searches in the literature, carefully evaluate the evidence, carry out the transposition of this evidence into the clinical context and verify its effectiveness for solving the initial problem. Despite the relevance of the topic, there are still few studies that assess the level of knowledge and skills of medical students regarding the use of EBM principles for clinical decision-making.

To diagnose the level of knowledge and skills of medical students regarding the use of scientific evidence for clinical decision-making, considering the principles of EBM.

This is an observational, cross-sectional study with a population of medical students. Inclusion criteria were: Brazilian nationality, being over 18 years old, being enrolled from the 3rd year of the course and taking courses listed in the clinical cycle. Sociodemographic questionnaires and questionnaires on the level of prior knowledge in EBM were used, in addition to the Assessing Competencies in Evidence-Based Medicine (ACE) tool. All instruments were transferred and made available through the Google Forms online questionnaire platform. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics.

The sample consisted of 45 students, mostly men (68.9%), brown (64.4%), single (84.4%) and enrolled in federal universities (91.1%), between the 3rd and 5th year of the course (56.8%). Most claimed to have knowledge (82.2%), regular skills (57.5%) and apply them (82.2%) in clinical practice, however, the average percentage of correct answers in the ACE tool was 43.97 % and about 41.7% left answers blank.

The results of the study demonstrate that, although most medical students claim to have knowledge and skills for the use of scientific evidence in clinical decision-making, there is a disagreement between the way participants perceive their own knowledge and actual knowledge, considering It was found that after applying the measurement instrument, only a reasonable percentage demonstrated adequate mastery of this clinical practice.

This study reveals important diagnostic points about knowledge and skills of medical students for the use of EBM that can be used to expand the training of health professionals in EBM. Such an approach helps in the formation of physicians with greater capacity for analysis, autonomy and willing to maintain the continuing education process to remain informed about the most current evidence that appears in the field of medicine.