Further questions concerned the sources that practitioners used to inform their own decision-making (Figure 1). The leading sources were ‘internal policy documents’ and ‘government websites’ (89% and 86% respectively). Fewer (39%) reported the direct use of online academic journals. Staff on higher grades were more likely to report using online academic journals than those in non-registered professional groups (54% compared to 22%, p < .001).

[CHART]

Figure 1: Sources used to inform practitioners’ own decision-making. Multiple choices permitted. n=229

Those respondents who stated that they were familiar with literature searching and critical appraisal were asked to rate their confidence in three areas. Following the convention of Gray et al. (2014), where 3 represents the scoring standard for an ‘adequate’ level of confidence, Table 5 shows that across all self-report measures the mean scores fell below adequate. Compared to non-registered professional staff, staff on higher grades reported greater levels of confidence, however the mean continued to be under 3 for each of the three scales.