Use of the Physiotherapy Evidence Database (PEDro) in Japan.

BACKGROUND: The Physiotherapy Evidence Database (PEDro) may help users to overcome some obstacles to evidence-based physiotherapy. Understanding the extent to which Japanese physiotherapists access research evidence via the PEDro website may suggest strategies to enhance evidence-based physiotherapy in Japan.

OBJECTIVES: To quantify usage of PEDro in Japan, to compare this to usage in other countries, and to examine variations in PEDro usage within Japan.

DESIGN: An observational study of PEDro usage with geographic analysis.

METHODS: Data about visits to the home-page and searches of the database were recorded for 4 years. These data were analysed by each region of the World Confederation for Physical Therapy, each country in the Asia Western Pacific region, and each prefecture in Japan.

RESULTS: From 2010 to 2013, users of PEDro made 2.27 million visits to the home-page and ran 6.28 million searches. Usage (ie, number of searches normalised by population) was highest in Europe, followed by North America Carribean, South America, Asia Western Pacific, and Africa. Within the Asia Western Pacific region, population-normalised usage was highest in Australia, then New Zealand and Singapore. Japan ranked 10 among the 26 countries in the region. Within Japan, the highest population-normalised usage was in the Nagano, Kumamoto and Aomori prefectures, which was ten-fold higher usage than in some other prefectures.

CONCLUSIONS: Although Japan has higher PEDro usage than many other countries in the Asia Western Pacific region, some prefectures had very low usage, suggesting that evidence-based practice may not be being adopted uniformly across Japan.