Artikel

Abstract

Evidence-based practice (EBP) has been advocated since the beginning of the 1990s and is today, at least within the western hemisphere, an established doctrine in many professional fields. This holds true also for addiction treatment. Over time EBP has come to signify a more general orientation to a scientifically secured knowledgebase and by this partly obscuring the fact there exists different and to some extent contradictory opinions on how EBP should be implemented. The paper aims at an analysis of the newly published Swedish national guidelines for addiction treatment. The analysis addresses several dimensions of the guidelines: a) the quality of the guidelines in terms of their scientific underpinning. b) The usefulness of the guidelines, i.e. to what extent it is possible to use the guidelines in actual practice. c). How the guidelines were produced (time-aspects, involvement of experts and the role of the National Board of Health and welfare as the responsible organisation). d) To what extent the guidelines have been developed with reference to and a discussion of some of the major scientific controversies related to the EBP issue.